OfD  wA./'Pvci. 


.■ILLot 


THE 


DOCTRINE  AND 

OF 


POLICY 


PROTECTIO^^, 


)F  THE  FEDERAL 
AESENT  TIME. 


UR  TARIFFS, 


SECOnrW-UANO  SHIPS  FOH  SAJLE. 

England  has  a large  sarplus  of  tonnage  which 
she  is  trying  very  hard  to  dispose  of.  These  snper- 
flaous  idle  vessels  are  the  result  of  over- speculation 
in  that  branch  of  commerce  in  Great  Britain,  just 
as  there  has  been  over-speculation  in  our  internal 
transportation  by  establishing  too  many  competing 
lines  of  railway,  and  by  starting  others  through  ter- 
ritory that  has  not  bnsiness  to  support  them.  If  the 
owners  of  the  idle  ships  referred  to  would  take  their 
pay  in  these  useless  or  used-up  railroads,  it  is  possi- 
ble something  in  the  way  of  rational  exchange  might 
be  accomplished  ; but  to  take  the  cast-off  lumber 
and  iron  of  the  British  ship  yards,  to  the  damage  of 
our  own  builders  and  their  workmen,  and  to  keep 
our  railway  and  other  lumber  and  iron  unavailable 
on  our  own  hands,  looks  a little  too  much  like  the 
buzzard  and  turkey  divide  between  the  white  hunter 
and  the  Indian ; it  is  turkey  all  the  time  on  one  eidfi, 
and  teozzard  njl  tha  tinnft  nn-lhfi  Other. 

Philadelphia,  Ledger, 


EY  ■ ^ 

DR.  WILLIAM  ELDER. 


PHILADELPHIA: 

Published  and  for  sale  by  RINGWALT  & BROWN,  No.  34  South  Third  St. 
Price,  10  cts.  per  copy^  75  cts.  per  dozen;  $5.00  per  hundred. 


—It  appears  from  the  Newcastle  Daily  Chronicle  / 
that  the  people  who  are  selling  American  meat  In 
the  north  of  England  have  been  interfered  with  in  a 
singular  manner.  The  town  council  of  Newcastle 
let  to  Mr.  Tindall,  a gentleman  employed  by  .John 
Hell  A Sons,  the  consignees  of  T.  C,  Eastman,  of 
this  city,  a cattle  shed  at  a rental  of  $375  a year. 

This  was  used  as  the  wholesale  sales-room  of  Ame- 
rican meat.  East  month,  without  a word  of  warn- 
ing the  town  authorities  of  Newcastle  tore  off  the 
sides  ol  the  shed,  just  as  a consignment  of  meat  was 
to  arrive,  leaving  the  interior  exposed  to  the  wea- 
ther. This  was  done  without  explanation,  although 
the  animus  of  it  was  clear  enough.  The  American 
importations  by  the  agents  ol  Mr.  Eastman,  which 
amount  to  1,500,000  pounds  annually  to  the  north  of 
England  have  kept  down  the  price  of  meat  in  that 
region,  and  the  liveliest  hostility  is  entertained 
towards  the  Americans  and  their  agents  by  the  local 
and  Irish  dealers.  This  unfriendly  act  of  the  town 
authorities,  being  without  cause,  was  immediately 
protested  against  by  Evan  K.  Jones,  the  United 
states  Consul,  and  every  effort  is  being  made  by 


Tins  Essay  upon  tlie  Protection  of  American  Industry  was  first  published  in  a 


series  of  articles  which  appeared  in  The  Press”  during  the  month  of  June  last — 


Col.  Forney  having  kindly  consented  to  the  re-publication  in  the  present  form. 
The  judgment  of  the  most  competent  political  economists  with  whom  we  are 


acquainted,  affirms  our  own  of  the  value  of  the  treatise.  They  think  with  us  that, 


it  ought  to  be  put  into  convenient  form  for  general  distribution.  It  is  not  a partisan 


presentment  of  the  subject,  but  a candid,  bold,  and  clear  discussion  of  the  topics 


involved.  We  have  given  the  name  of  the  author  upon  the  title  page,  for  the 


better  assurance  of  the  public  that  it  is  well  v/orth  a careful  perusal.  A glance  at 
the  headings  of  the  sections  is  sufficient  to  show  how  wide  and  comprehensive  is  the 


view  which  he  has  taken  of  his  subject. 


THE  rUBLISHERS. 


rniLABEi.pniA,  August,  1860. 


THE  DOCTRIM  AND  POLICY  OP  PROTECTION. 


REVIVAL  OF  PROTECTION  DOCTRINE — REVENUE 
AND  PROTECTION  INTER-DEPENDENT. 

The  passage  of  the  Morrill  tarilf  bill  through 
the  House  of  Representatives  by  a majority  so 
much  larger  than  its  warmest  friends  expected, 
and  the  slightness  of  the  resistance  offered  to 
it  by  the  men  classed  as  its  opponents,  indi- 
cate a favorable  change  in  the  governing  mind 
of  the  nation.  The  system  of  ad  valorem 
duties  has  been  so  long  in  operation,  and  the 
doctrine  of  protection  had  fallen  so  much  in 
current  opinion,  that  the  large  success  of  the 
counter  movement  excites  as  much  surprise  as 
pleasure  among  its  friends.  Four  years  ago 
protection  was  generally  regarded  as  an  obso- 
lete idea,  although  the  tariff  of  1840  was,  in 
fact,  decidedly  protective,  both  by  its  discrim- 
inations and  its  rates  of  duty — failing  only  in 
the  mode  of  assessment — and  the  income  from 
customs  was  so  much  in  excess  of  the  wants  of 
the  Treasury,  that  the  politicians,  the  statisti- 
cians, and  the  people,  felt  the  resulting  embar- 
rassment of  maintaining  a theory  of  protection, 
absolute  and  adequate,  both  in  the  rates  of 
duty  and  the  manner  of  levying  them.  It  was 
not  clearly  understood  tha^the  lower  rates  of 
duty  produce  the  larger  revenue,  although  this 
was  the  very  ground  upon  which  the  tariff  of 
1846  was  put  by  Mr,  Walker  and  its  ablest 
advocates.  Even  Mr.  Guthrie  recommended 
a general  reduction  of  about  fifteen  per  cent, 
upon  the  tariff  as  a means  of  reducing  the  ac- 
cumulating surplus  in  the  Treasury.  This 
was  a general  mistake.  The  tariff  of  1857 
shows  to  what  an  extent  it  prevailed.  The 
enormously  high  tariff  of  1828,  in  its  highest 
year,  produced  but  twenty-eight  millions  of 
revenue,  for  the  reason  that  the  foreign  im- 
ports per  head  of  the  population  never  went 
above  six  dollars  and  twenty-five  cents;  while 
the  moderate  tariff  of  1846  raised  the  customs 
of  1853,  to  sixty-four  millions,  because  the 
importations  had  swollen  to  ten  dollars  a head 
of  the  population,  and  in  1857  to  eleven  dollars 
and  eighty-two  cents.  Our  duty-paying  im- 
ports have  varied  in  amount  in  five  years, 
from  one  hundred  and  eighty-three  to  two 
hundred  and  ninety-four  millions,  or  more 
than  doubled.  How,  then,  can  a system  of 
finance  be  founded  upon  a mere  difference  of 
percentages,  without  regard  to  their  effect 
upon  the  amount  of  the  imports  ? Twenty-five 
per  cent,  more  duty  may  produce  twenty-five 
per  cent,  less  revenue,  and  vice  versa.  A tariff, 
to  be  a steady  revenue  measure,  must  be  con- 
structed in  reference  to  the  amount  of  imports 
it  favors,  as  well  as  to  the  rate  of  imposts 


which  it  levies.  It  is  the  business  of  our  Leg- 
islators, as  much  as  it  is  of  the  industrial 
classes,  to  regulate  our  foreign  trade.  Adjust- 
ment to  the  wants  of  the  Government  is  just 
as  necessary  as  to  the  interests  of  domestic 
industry ; and,  fortunately,  the  requirements 
of  the  Government  and  the  interests  of  home 
industry  are  not  at  variance.  Duties  so  high 
as  to  be  prohibitory,  or  nearly  so,  would  beg- 
gar the  Treasury ; very  much  too  low,  say  five 
per  cent,  upon  three  hundred  millions  of  duti- 
able imports,  would  yield  the  revenue  but 
fifteen  millions  per  annum ; an  average  of 
twenty-five  per  cent,  yields  seventy-five  mil- 
lions. Neither  of  these  rates  has  the  power  to 
regulate  the  amount  of  imports,  nor  of  the 
accruing  revenue.  No  mere  rule  of  per-cent- 
ages,  exclusively  arithmetical,  can  do  it.  At 
an  average  below  twenty  per  cent.,  the  cus- 
toms last  year  amounted  to  fifty  millions.  If 
the  country  had  wholly  recovered  itself  from 
the  revulsion  of  1857,  the  amount  would  have 
been  seventy-five  millons.  The  secret  is  not 
to  be  found  in  the  multiplication  table,  nor  in 
the  noddles  of  ciphering  statisticians. 

On  the  other  hand,  adequate  protection  to 
the  productive  forces  of  the  country  is  not  mis- 
chievous to  the  national  revenue  from  customs. 
All  that  is  gained  by  the  one  is  not  lost  by  the 
other,  for  foreign  trade  is  a variable  quantity. 
Its  amount  may  be  increased  by  a policy  which 
regulates  it  in  the  whole,  while  it  restrains  it 
in  particulars.  A nation  needing  it  only 
wants  the  capability  of  buying  a thousand  lux- 
uries which  it  cannot  yet  produce  for  itself. 
By  a sound  policy  secure  to  it  the  power  to 
purchase  and  its  exchanges  will  enlarge  in 
proportion.  England  has  a revenue  of  one 
hundred  and  ten  millions  of  dollars  from  cus- 
toms, although  her  system  is  as  nearly  free 
trade  as  may  be,  simply  because  she  is  able  to 
buy  nearly  a thousand  millions’  worth  of  for- 
eign products.  Some  how  or  other,  the  ab- 
surdly high  tariff  of  1828  allowed  a sufficient 
income  from  customs  to  free  the  nation  from 
debt,  and  yield  besides  so  large  a revenue  for 
current  purposes,  that  it  led  to  the  adoption 
of  a large  free  list  in  1832,  by  which  coffee, 
tea,  and  other  tropical  luxuries,  were  for  the 
first  time  exempted  from  duty,  and  brought 
within  the  reach  of  the  poorest  of  our  people. 

Here,  again,  it  is  apparent  that  the  problem 
of  national  finance  is  too  broad  for  a mere 
schoolmaster  or  a bureau  clerk.  That  it  has 
been  too  hard  for  our  politicians  is  well  proved 
by  the  twenty  different  tariffs  which  we  have 
had  in  the  last  seventy  years. 


JL 


(3) 


4 


t 

PRACTICAL  SOLUTION  OF  THE  QUESTION  BY 
NAPOLEON. 

If  a true  system  of  international  trade  could 
be  built  out  of  logic,  theorists  would  have  ac- 
complished it  by  this  time,  for  there  has  been 
a vast  quantity  of  brains  employed  in  the 
speculation.  If  experiment  could  liave  blun- 
dered on  it,  it  would  have  been  found  long 
ago,  for  nations  have  again  and  again  run  the 
whole  round  of  hap-hazard  trials.  Or  if  it 
were  any  one  unchangeable  thing,  and  the 
same  conditions  could  concur  twice  in  as  many 
centuries  among  the  same  people,  men  miglit 
have  learned  something  useful  from  experience, 
whether  they  understood  its  principles  or  not; 
but  neither  naked  logic  nor  luck  can  command 
it.  Napoleon  I.  was  ahead  of  us  in  this 
opinion.  He  said  : “ If  an  Empire  were  made 
of  adamant,  political  economy  would  grind  it 
to  dust.”  He  prohibited  the  publication  of 
J.  B.  Say’s  system  for  a dozen  years.  He  knew 
that  the  logic  of  that  work  was  specious,  and  he 
knew  that  it  was  pernicious;  and  being  too  busy 
with  the  practical  work  of  governing  a nation 
to  enter  the  lists  as  a disputant,  he  interdicted 
the  book.  Under  the  circumstances  he  was 
exactly  right.  The  short  answer  of  a blockade 
all  around  the  maritime  coasts  of  continental 
Europe,  declared  by  the  Berlin  and  Milan  de- 
crees, was  the  practical  solution  of  the  ques- 
tions involved.  Then  again,  the  sword  cut 
the  gordian  knot,  and  France  and  Germany 
were  thereby  released  from  industrial  depen- 
dence upon  Great  Britain  forever.  A profes- 
sor of  political  economy  could  not  have  done 
as  much  with  any  quantity  of  foolscap. 

Napoleon  had  another  idea  worthy  of  him. 
“Formerly,”  he  said,  “there  was  only  one 
kind  of  property,  land;  another  has  since 
arisen,  industry ;”  and  he  held  it  as  wise  and 
as  necessary  to  defend  the  one  as  the  other 
from  foreign  invasion.  He  knew  that  a na- 
tion’s welfare  is  not  measured  by  its  foreign 
trade,  but  by  its  productive  power — that  the 
policy  of  a huckster  is  not  the  law  of  national 
life ; and  he  freely  sacrificed  values,  while  he 
fostered  and  cherished  the  power  that  pro- 
duced them.  He  would  not  stand  to  haggle 
over  prices,  but  concerned  himself  with  the 
real  question — how  shall  a nation  increase  its 
powm-  to  command  and  consume  commodities? 
Neither  has  Gobden  over-reached  liis  nephew. 
Thirty  per  cent,  duties,  reduced  to  specifics, 
and  useless  ])rohibi(ions  removed,  because  no 
longer  necessary  or  y)()litic,  kcei)S  France  safe 
from  d(!.H(ructive  comi)efition.  Ho  may  rc- 
rnemlutr  tiuit  Lord  Biuxhijiam  said  in  1815, 
“ lOnglanil  can  afford  to  incur  some  loss  on 
the  (ixport  of  English  goods,  for  the  pur|)ose 
of  dcslroying  foredgn  manufaef ures  in  tJieir 
cradl*!,”  and  that  (lie  renowned  .Ioseimi  Hume, 
in  I H'JH,  declared  in  I'arliament  ( hat  ho  desired 
to  see  “the  mariu fn(;( ures  of  (he  conlinent 
sfrangleil  in  (h<^  cradle.”  Or  ho  may  have 
read  the  icport  made  in  I’arlianu'ut,  upon 
(lu!  condition  of  (Iw;  peiiple  in  (he  mining  dis- 
trief-',  in  IH.')!,  in  whi(!h  (hc^  following  ai'gu- 
ment  is  pu(  (o  tlu!  strikers  for  higher  wages: 


“Authentic  instances  arc  well  known  of 
(English)  employers  having  in  such  times 
(times  of  depressed  prices)  carried  on  their 
works,  at  a loss  amounting  to  three  or  four 
hundred  thousand  pounds  in  the  course  of  as 
many  years.  If  the  efi'orts  of  those  who  en- 
courage the  combination  to  restrict  (he  amount 
of  labor,  and  to  produce  strikes,  were  to  be 
successful  for  any  length  of  time,  the  great 
accumulations  of  capital  could  no  longer  be 
made,  which  enable  a few  of  the  most  wealthy 
capitalists  to  overwhelm  all  foreign  competition 
in  times  of  great  depression,  and  thus  to  clear 
the  way  for  the  whole  trade  to  step  in  when 
prices  revive,  and  to  carry  on  a great  business 
before  foreign  capital  can  again  accumulate 
to  such  an  extent  as  to  be  able  to  establish  a 
competition  in  prices  with  any  chance  of 
success.” 

That  Louis  Napoleon  had  these  things  in 
his  mind  when  he  concluded  the  late  treaty 
with  England,  is  clear  enough,  and  according- 
ly he  treated  the  English  economists’  books, 
and  the  free  traders’  speeches,  just  as  he 
treated  their  other  commodities,  made,  not  for 
home  consumption,  but  for  foreign  markets. 

trade,  the  one  idea  of  free-trade 

AUTHORITIES. 

Political  economy,  as  it  is  formally  taught 
and  popularly  apprehended,  begins  with 
wealth,  and  ends  with  wealth,  by  which  is 
meant  material  riches,  capital,  or  exchange- 
able values.  Adam  Smith  treats  the  whole 
subject  within  the  limits  of  an  “Inquiry  into 
the  Nature  and  Causes  of  the  Wealth  of  Na- 
tions.” J.  B.  Say,  his  best  expositor,  and  the 
founder  of  the  prevailing  school,  thinks  Politi- 
cal Economy  is  nothing  else  than  a science  of 
“The  Production,  Distribution  and  Consump- 
tion of  Wealth.'"  McCulloch  says,  “it  may 
be  defined  to  be  the  science  of  values;”  and 
Archbishop  Whately  even  proposed  to  sub- 
stitute the  definition,  ‘ ‘A  Science  of  Exchanges.  ” 
Taking  either  the  technical  or  popular  notion, 
a complete  system  might  be  justly  called  a 
Treatise  upon  Trade,  a Mercantile  Policy,  or 
anything  else  that  concerns  itself  first  and  only 
with  the  products  of  industry  when  they  are 
ready  for  mai;Jvct,  or  brought  into  the  field  of 
distribution.  To  this  limited  apprehension, 
the  maxim  “buy  cheap  and  sell  dear”  exactly 
corresponds.  There  is  nothing  else  in  the 
whole  system.  A nation  is  regarded  as  a mer- 
chant, whoso  wliole  concern  is  to  make  the 
largest  profit  out  of  the  trade  in  which  it  is  at 
the  moment  engaged  ; and  buying  and  selling 
between  distant  communities  of  men  is  held  to 
bo  the  moans  and  the  measure  of  national 
prosperity.  In  other  words,  national  wealth 
is  ])roduced  by  exchange  or  barter,  which,  of 
course,  is  entitled  to  the  first  consideration 
and  the  best  etforts  of  a people  aiming  at  ad- 
vancement. Hero  money  and  merclnindise arc 
central  and  supreme;  and  man,  if  ho  is  con- 
sidered at  all,  must  bo  regarded  simply  as  an 
instrument  of  production.  Under  this  system 
it  is  not  HO  clear  that  products  arc  made  for 


5 


men  as  that  men  are  made  for  products ; and 
consumpiion  is,  accordingly,  only  an  expression 
of  demand,  and  a condition  of  supply;  and 
prices  are  regarded  only  as  they  facilitate  or 
hinder  that  consumption  which  keeps  up  trade. 

The  man  of  the  economists,  obviously  enough, 
ismot  the  man  of  nature  and  society.  Their 
theory  is  nothing  but  a policy  of  exchangeable 
values.  Invoices  and  ledgers  are  its  exponents, 
and  exports  and  imports  its  only  data.  But  a 
science  of  society,  a theory  of  national  life, 
should  be  occupied  with  the  individual  and 
national  welfare  of  men.  It  should  concern 
itself  with  the  productive  power  of  a people, 
and  with  their  power  to  consume  products  ; 
and  with  trade  and  exchange  only  as  they  con- 
tribute to  these,  which  are  the  means  and  the 
objects  of  wealth.  The  wealth  of  a man,  or  of 
a nation,  consists  of,  and  is  measured  by, 
their  power  to  command  the  services  of  nature 
for  their  uses ; their  productive  power,  there- 
fore, and  their  consumption  of  products,  are  the 
starting  points  of  study,  as  they  are  the  things 
to  be  secured  and  promoted  in  a true  system 
of  social  science.  All  else  is  but  subsidiary  to 
these  ends.  Neither  international  free  trade, 
nor  commercial  restriction  and  protection  are 
anything  more  than  means  or  agencies.  They 
are  not  in  themselves  substantive  or  absolute. 
They  are  regulative  or  remedial,  but  they  are 
not  of  the  essence  of  political  or  national  life  ; 
they  are  not  ends  or  aims,  but  means  of  attain- 
ment. 

PRINCIPLES  AND  AIMS  OP  A TRUE  NATIONAL 
SYSTEM. 

Before  proceeding  to  state  our  doctrine  of 
Protection,  we  propose,  briefly  and  as  clearly 
as  we  can,  to  outline  our  notion  of  political 
economy  applied  in  the  practice  of  a nation’s 
government. 

To  be  sound,  beneficial,  and  practical,  it 
should  rest  alike  upon  Philosophy  and  Policy, 
upon  reason  and  expediency.  The  experience 
of  the  past,  adjusted  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
present,  is  to  be  consulted  and  observed,  and 
the  future  must  be  kept  steadily  in  view,  and 
be  allowed  its  due  influence  upon  opinion  and 
action  in  the  present,  just  as  the  end  of  a 
journey  rightly  directs  every  footstep  in  the 
route,  and  for  the  reason  that,  whatever  best 
promotes  the  maturity  of  a process  is  necessa- 
rily best  adapted  to  every  stage  of  its  growth. 

In  the  matter  of  international  relations. 
Philosophy  teaches  the  importance  and  the 
necessity  of  trade  and  exchange  between  na- 
tions which  are  dissimilar  in  their  natural  or 
acquired  capabilities  of  production,  in  all 
things  in  which  they  can  be  mutually  helpful 
or  complementary.  It  enjoins  abstinence  from 
war ; the  establishment  of  international  law, 
governing  their  necessary  relations  according 
to  justice  and  amity  ; and,  freedom  of  commu- 
nication in  all  things  that  promote  their  moral 
and  material  interests.  So  far,  a sound  na- 
tional economy  is  cosmopolitan  in  its  range  ; 
but,  furtlier  than  the  well-being  of  the  whole 
race  m it  listers  to  that  of  a particular  nation 
that  nation  must  not  go  in  philanthropy.  Its 


immediate  concern  is  self-development;  and 
after,  and  subsidary  to  this,  all  that  is  practi- 
cable for  the  world  outside.  Here  Policy  has 
place,  and  the  maxims  of  universal  and  mil- 
lenial  science  must  be  put  under  the  limitations 
of  expediency. 

A wise  administration,  in  the  case  of  a par- 
ticular people,  pursues  special  objects — mea- 
sures calculated  to  hasten  their  progress  in 
civilization,  power,  and  well-being,  and  the 
improvement  of  their  social  condition,  so  that 
the  body  politic  shall  be  harmoniously  devel- 
oped in  all  its  parts,  perfect  in  itself,  and 
politically  independent.  The  teachings  of  ab- 
stract theory  must  be  accommodated  to  the  ac- 
tual conditions  and  capacities  of  the  people. 
First  principles  and  general  laws  apply  only 
in  those  sciences  whose  subjects  are  fixed, 
orderly,  and  perfect,  as  in  arithmetic,  and  in 
chemistry ; but  the  remedial  arts,  whether 
they  are  medical  or  political,  have  disorder, 
inconstancy,  and  variability  to  deal  with,  and 
their  principles  and  policies  cannot  be  thrown 
into  stereotyped  formulae. 

THE  COSMOPOLITE  SCHOOL  OF  THEORISTS. 

A mind,  governed  wholly  by  what  it  calls  ex- 
perience, blindly  follows  the  restrictive  sys- 
tem of  national  policy,  if  that  is  the  inherited 
faith,  on  the  assumption  that  customs,  favora- 
ble in  any  circumstances,  are  best  for  all  cir- 
cumstances, and  that  the  restraints  imposed 
upon  childhood  are  necessary  to  maturity. 
Such  a man  believes  that  it  was  the  toll-gate, 
not  the  turnpike-road,  that  cheapened  the 
butter  he  bought  in  market  thirty  years  ago, 
and  he  has  terrible  apprehensions  of  a free 
road  after  such  an  experience.  England  levied 
a duty  of  thirty-two  dollars  per  ton  upon  iron 
for  years  after  she  was  making  it  at  fifteen  dol- 
lars less  than  it  could  be  done  by  the  nations 
whose  competition  she  was  defending  herself 
from  ! Your  man  of  experience  is  thoroughly 
convinced  that  his  own  shadow  is  the  only 
light  to  walk  in.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
speculative  free-trader  turns  the  little  end  of 
his  telescope  upon  the  routinist,  and  imagines 
he  sees  him  at  his  exact  relative  distance. 
How  small,  and  how  high  up  in  antiquity,  the 
man  who  would  be  meddling  with  the  natural 
and  universal  law  of  things  seems  to  him ! 
How  narrow  the  theory  that  does  not  embrace 
the  whole  family  of  nations  as  in  millenial 
harmony  and  identity  of  interest,  and  governed 
by  the  one  general  law  of  unconditional  policy ! 
With  him,  diversity  of  conditions  and  difi'eren- 
ces  of  nationality  are  of  no  account,  because 
he  is  quite  sure  that  man  is  cosmopolite  ; that 
the  zones  were  intended  to  supply  each  other’s 
deficiencies  ; that  the  laws  of  trade  are  just  as 
inflexible  as  those  of  chemical  affinity,  or  the 
attraction  of  gravitation ; that  commerce  is 
the  great  civilizer,  Christianizer,  and  equali- 
zer of  the  earth;  that  the  more  a nation  trades 
with  other  nations,  and  the  greater  the  distance 
between  them,  the  better ; that  if  one  nation 
limits  its  purchases  by  restrictive  imposts,  it 
must  limit  its  sales  in  the  same  proportion ; 
that  every  penny  added  to  the  cost  of  a foreign 


G 


commodity  makes  it  that  much  dearei’  to  the  ! 
consumer;  that  protection  is  a monopoly  to  flie 
few  at  the  expense  of  the  many  ; and  a thou- 
sand other  plausibilities  and  platitudes  are 
ready  to  overwhelm  the  man  of  policy  ; 
and  with  all  the  less  respect  for  his  opinions, 
that  he  is  really  regarded  as  a mere  charlatan 
in  social  science. 

These  people  deal  in  generalities  always. 
With  them  freedom  of  trade  means  free  foreign 
trade;  but  whether  that  might  in  any  case 
prevent  free  domestic  trade  tlicy  will  not  stop  ! 
to  inquire.  Ask  them,  “ when  free  trade 
means  slave  men,  what  will  you  do  about  it?” 
The  answer  is  another  generality,  “buy  where 
you  can  buy  cheapest,  is  the  law  of  merchan- 
dising, and  that  will  take  care  of  its  own 
consequences.”  With  them  whatever  is  “free” 
is  right  and  best;  and,  if  commerce  is  in  any 
case  a conflict,  a free  fight  has  their  sanction, 
and  they  would  pull  down  custom-houses 
though  they  were  shown  to  be  fortifications  of 
defence.  Appeal  to  history  and  you  are 
answered  that  it  is  obselete ; that  policy  is  a 
blunder  and  abuse;  and  that  the  practical  is 
nothing  but  routine.  They  deny  all  results  to 
be  effects ; and  declare  that  England,  whose 
system  has  been  the  most  restrictive,  and 
whose  success  has  been  correspondingly  com- 
plete, prospered,  not  by  her  policy,  but  in 
spite  of  it.  Why?  Why,  because  it  was  un- 
philosophical.  Which  means,  that  the  neces- 
sary policy  of  feebleness  is  not  the  true  theory 
of  conduct,  because  it  is  not  only  unnecessary, 
but  inconvenient  and  burdensome  to  matured 
strength ; that  no  child  should  be  tolerated 
when  once  a man  is  produced ; that  the  end 
is  so  much  better  than  the  beginning,  that 
the  alphabet  and  infancy  ought  to  be  instantly 
abolished. 

These  are  philanthropists,  not  statesmen; 
prophets,  not  historians  ; theorists,  not  phi- 
losophers. They  do  not  know  that  civil 
government  is  a system  of  expediency,  and 
not  of  speculation ; that  the  absolute  best  is 
not  so  good  for  use  as  the  best  adjusted;  nor 
that  liberty  itself  must  be  postponed  for  law, 
under  which  it  may  grow  until  it  becomes 
identical  with  law.  Tliey  do  not  know  that 
absolute  science  applies  only  to  order  and 
healtli,  not  to  disorder  and  disease.  They 
would  repress  tlie  adhesiveinflammation  which 
heals  a broken  bone,  because  it  is  not  the  nor- 
mal state*  of  the  circulation;  and  would  tell 
the  convahiscent  Dial  lie  got  well  in  spile  of 
if. — that  tlic  sfilinis  and  bandages  did  not  pro- 
te*ct,  l)ut  rather  eniliarassed  tlie  conslitufional 
forces.  'I’his  is  I he  way  (liey  treat  the  naviga- 
tion act  of  Ihigland,  umh'r  which  lu'r  navy 
grew  to  the  niasfei'y  of  the  ocean;  and  her 
jerofc.ctive  syslciri,  wliich  lias  given  lu'r  ])re- 
ceih'uce  anmng  the  industrial  and  coniinei'cial 
nations  of  t Ik;  earth. 

'I’hat  I Ik;  sysfi'in  of  the  iheorisls  of  the 
Hmith  and  S\y  school  is  cosinopolil i(;al,  and 
not  jiaf ional,  is  apparent  (Voni  the  fact  that  all 
their  principles  are  ah.'dracf,  universal,  and 
uneondil  ion.'il;  I hat  universal  peace*  is  the  basis 
of  Die.ir  whole  .'ilructure  of  doctrines;  that 


they  hold  all  mcarsures  of  civil  government 
for  the  promotion  of  industrial  prosperity  as 
utterly  useless;  and  teach,  in  ge/icral,  that  to 
“ i-aisc  a State  from  the  lowest  degree  of  bar- 
barism to  the  highest  jirosperity  of  whicli  it 
is  capable,  only  three  things  are  necessary — 
moderate  taxation,  a good  administration  of 
distributive  justice,  and  peace,  foreign  and  do- 
mestic.” This  is  the  language  of  Aoam  Smitu. 
J,  C.  Say  speaks  of  private  economy,  by  which 
he  means  that  of  the  single  family  ; public 
\ economy,  which  is  that  of  a nation  ; and  of 
political  economy,  by  which  he  intends  that  of 
all  nations,  or  of  the  whole  human  race,  con- 
sidered as  one  great  partnership  of  mutual  and 
harmonious  relations  in  trade  and  commerce  ; 
but  he  does  not  treat  of  i\n^  public  or  national 
economy,  thus  distinguished  from  political,  at 
all ; yet  his  disciples  insist  that  his  system  is 
a manual  and  a directory  for  statesmen  ! 

AVe  will  now  endeavor  to  present  such  ideas 
of  a national  system  of  economy  as  may  help 
us  to  a better  elucidation  of  our  particular 
subject. 

ADAPTATION  OF  POLICY  TO  NATIONAL  CONDITIONS. 

A science  or  system  of  political  economy, 
true  in  principle  and  useful  in  application, 
must  be  adapted  to  the  special  conditions  of 
the  people  with  whose  affairs  it  is  concerned. 
But  there  are  now  existing  in  the  world  nations 
in  the  savage  state ; others  in  the  pastoral ; 
others  purely  agricultural ; others  mixed  agri- 
cultural and  manufacturing ; and  others,  still, 
who  are  agricultural,  manufacturing  and  com- 
mercial ; and  all  of  them  are  yet  further  varied 
by  their  respective  degrees  of  advancement  in 
each  of  these  stages.  Moreover,  some  of  them 
occupy  the  frigid,  some  the  torrid,  and  some 
the  temperate  zones,  with  their  capabilities 
and  their  destinies  either  inflexibly  fixed  or 
greatly  influenced  by  climatic  laws.  Nor  is 
national  character  to  be  overlooked.  They  are 
not  all  equally  capable  of  everything,  nor  can 
the  races  of  men  be  treated  as  homogenous  and 
equal  in  the  things  with  which  economical  sci- 
ence is  concerned ; and  we  have  not  yet  em- 
braced all  the  diversities  of  condition  with 
which  a practical  system  is  necessarily  occu- 
pied ; for  the  same  people,  if  they  are  favora- 
bly situated  in  a temperate  climate,  with  a 
sufficient  extent  of  territory,  and  variety  of 
industrial  agencies,  must,  in  the  progress  of 
growtli,  pass  tlirough  all  the  stages,  from  the 
simplest  agricidture  up  to  the  most  perfect  and 
complete  diversification  of  productive  industry 
and  international  commerce.  No  code  of  doc- 
trinal and  practical  economy  can  be  true  for 
all  Ihcso  differences  of  condition  in  which 
Hlalos  are  actually  found;  and  no  system  will 
ajiply  to  the  same  people  in  ciroumstaiioes  ma- 
terially changed. 

'I'lie  lhs(iuiniaux  of  the  Arctic  region  may 
liavo  an  invariable  jniblio  law,  simply  because 
they  need  none  of  any  kind,  'flioir  productive 
indiislry  di tiers  in  nolliing,  with  whicli  political 
economy  can  lie  concerned,  from  Itiat  of  the 
polar  lieai’S  and  walruses.  Boniewhat  nearer 
I the  borders  of  civilization,  barter  in  furs  and 


7 


peltry  with  foreigners  can  be  just  as  well  con- 
ducted without  a system  of  public  policy. — 
For  such  regions  and  conditions  a uniform 
and  permanent  rule  of  conduct  may  be  easily 
contrived.  Adam  Smith’s  notion  of  light 
taxes,  social  justice,  and  national  peace,  as  the 
sum  and  substance  of  a political  economy,  is 
just  in  place.  In  the  tropical  and  semi-tropi- 
cal regions  of  the  earth,  there  is  such  constancy 
of  conditions,  and  such  limitations  of  indus- 
trial productiveness,  and  their  communities 
are  so  far  removed  from  the  class  of  progres- 
sive nations,  that  the  primal  laws  of  nature 
need  but  little  modification  for  their  political 
uses.  A people  who  cannot  considerabl}^  di- 
versify their  industry,  or  develop  their  pro- 
ductive power  except  by  mere  increase  of  force 
in  a single  form,  depend  upon  a natural  mo- 
nopoly of  their  special  product ; and  that 
condition  of  things  takes  the  government  of 
their  affairs  out  of  the  reach  of  all  interfer- 
ence. If  their  soil,  climate,  and  quality  of 
labor  are  capable  only  of  more  cotton,  rice, 
gold,  or  silver,  until  their  soils  and  mines  are 
exhausted,  they  no  more  need  a system  of  po- 
litical economy,  regulative  and  protective, 
than  the  Esquimaux  do.  The  philosophy  of 
the  “ let  alone”  system,  or  universal  free  trade, 
is  precisely  the  thing  for  them,  from  the  be- 
gining  to  the  end  of  their  career.  A theory  of 
their  interests  is  just  what  a work  on  botany 
is  to  the  vegetable  word — descriptive,  but  not 
in  any  sense  directory.  It  is  as  far  from  a 
code  of  economical  laws  as  a zoological  treatise 
is  from  a system  of  jurisprudence  for  the  ani- 
mal kingdom ; that  is,  they  can  have  a logical 
and  invariable  doctrine  of  industrial  policy, 
because  they  need  none  vdiatever.  States 
dedicated  by  nature  to  cotton-growing  exclu- 
sively have  but  two  cardinal  points  of  policy 
to  pursue — the  one  is,  to  increase  the  quantity 
of  their  product ; the  other  to  get  exchange 
commodities  as  cheap  as  possible.  Values 
and  profits  are  their  sole  concern,  and  all 
other  things  are  subordinate  to  these.  “Buy 
cheap  and  sell  dear,”  is  their  policy  of  trade. 
Their  prosperity,  such  as  they  are  capable  of, 
demands  the  freest  intercourse  with  the  more 
advanced  nations,  whom  they  need  as  custo- 
mers and  consumers.  “Light  taxes,  internal 
order,  and  general  peace,”  is  their  system, 
certainly,  and  the  whole  of  it.  With  them 
exchangeable  values  is  everything,  the  de- 
velopment of  productive  power,  or  the  na- 
tional power,  nothing.  Only  secure  to  them 
their  national  independence,  and  the  simplest 
instincts  will  take  care  of  their  national  life. 
Unrestricted  trade,  or  trade  without  law,  is 
their  natural  rule. 

But  nations  in  the  temperate  climates,  well 
provided  for  progress,  and  with  a future  before 
them,  have  their  fortunes  to  make  or  mar  by 
their  own  management.  Their  destiny  is  not 
determined,  nor  their  conditions  established 
by  a vertical  sun  in  the  heavens,  or  a continent 
of  ice  on  the  earth.  They  occupy  a position 
that  imposes  responsibility,  because  it  confers 
freedom.  They  are  to  master  the  elements, 
not  to  submit  to  them;  and  that  “natural 


law,”  or  naturalness  of  law  which  rules  ani- 
mals and  men  who  cannot  materially  modify 
their  own  fortunes,  loses  all  its  authoritative 
absoluteness  for  them. 

Such  a people,  in  their  transition  from  simple 
agriculture,  in  all  its  earlier  stages,  will  have 
their  welfare  greatly  promoted  by  unrestricted 
commerce  with  manufacturing  and  commercial 
nations  ; their  exchanges  will  be  more  profita- 
ble ; the  importation  of  instruments  of  pro- 
duction, and  the  supply  of  wants  which  they 
are  not  yet  in  condition  to  meet  by  their  own 
industry,  operate  every  way  to  their  benefit. 
Their  production  and  consumption  are  in- 
creased ; their  enterprise  is  stimulated ; they 
are  educated  and  refined ; their  ambition  for 
excellence  is  awakened ; and  every  form  of 
advantage,  moral  and  material,  is  derived  to 
them,  as  all  that  are  inferior  must  profit  by 
commerce  with  their  superiors,  up  to  the  point 
where  that  commerce  begins  to  repress  their 
own  growth. 

The  external  trade  of  nations  of  the  tempe- 
rate zones  with  those  of  the  frigid  and  tropi- 
cal, is  so  inflexibly  determined  by  the  natural 
law  of  the  subject  that  it  offers  no  problem  for 
the  exercise  of  reasoning,  submits  to  no  system 
of  policy,  and  neither  asks  nor  allows  any 
regulative  interference.  But  the  trade  of  the 
several  communities  of  men  occupying  similar 
climates,  and  with  similar  capabilities  in  all 
things,  is  necessarily  subject  to  conditions, 
and  is  materially  dependent  upon  them  for 
its  policy.  Two  neighboring  islands  in  the 
Caribean  sea  have  no  more  natural  reciproci- 
ties of  want  and  supply,  than  two  adjoining 
farmers,  or  two  gold-diggers,  working  in  the 
same  mine.  Great  Britain,  France  and  Ger- 
many, are  not  by  nature  so  unlike  that  either 
of  them  must  of  necessity  be  the  food-produ- 
cer, or  cloth-maker,  or  manufacturer  of  tools 
and  cutlery,  for  the  other.  England  must  go 
to  France  or  elsewhere  for  her  wines,  and 
France  must  get  her  copper  from  England  if 
she  can  find  no  mines  of  the  ore  in  her  own 
territory  ; for  the  natural  law  of  trade  is  the 
mutual  supply  of  the  things  in  which  the  parties 
a, re  respectively  deficient.  This  condition  of  ex- 
change exists,  therefore,  not  only  as  to  com- 
modities or  products,  of  which  either  has  the 
natural  monopoly,  but  also  as  to  those  things 
which  either  may  be  accidentally  and  tempo- 
rarily incapable  of  furnishing  on  demand  for 
use.  The  economical  condition  of  a country 
of  even  the  highest  prospective  capabilities, 
while  yet  in  its  infancy,  thinly  peopled,  and 
with  little  material  and  mental  capital,  is 
greatly  benefitted  by  free  trade  with  manu- 
facturing nations.  But  it  cannot  be  too 
strongly  insisted  upon  that  all  foreign  trade 
must  be  merely  complementary,  for  all  other 
and  all  beyond  this  is  merely  domination  of  the 
one  and  dependency  of  the  other.  An  emi- 
grant to  one  of  our  Western  prairies  may  ad- 
vantageously, because  he  must,  work  in  his 
neighbor-farmer’s  cornfield  for  a year  or  two, 
and  take  his  wages  in  corn  and  pork ; but  if 
he  continues  to  sell  his  labor  thus  for  a dozen 
years,  he  is  at  the  same  time  selling  his  farm 


8 


to  that  neighbor  and  losing  the  ownership. 
So  a whole  nation  may  very  profitably  exchange 
its  raw  materials  and  provisions  for  foreign 
manufactures,  until  its  own  labor  and  capital 
can  supply  them  for  domestic  use.  In  other 
words  exchangeable  values  may  be  the  aim  of  a 
national  policy,  while  they  promote  productive 
power  ; but  when  trade  begins  to  cripple  pro- 
duction, it  must  be  subordinated.  In  a nation 
holding  the  highest  rank,  or  rapidly  approach- 
ing it,  raw  materials  and  provisions  have  their 
whole  value  in  home  consumption  and  inter- 
nal trade. 

EXPORT  OP  RAW  PRODUCTS,  THE  TRADE  OF  RAW 
COMMUNITIES. 

A nation  which  exports  all  its  products  raw, 
and  imports  all  its  manufactures,  cannot  grow 
in  wealth,  population  and  power  above  the 
grade  of  infancy  and  dependence.  Its  exports 
are  enormous  in  bulk  and  low  in  value;  its 
imports  are  small  in  bulk  and  high  in  value. 
The  exports  must  bear  the  cost  of  their  trans- 
port to  foreign  markets,  and  the  imports  must 
pay  an  equal  freight,  for  ships  that  return  in 
ballast  must  be  compensated,  in  effect,  for  the 
loss  of  cargo.  If  Alabama  exchanges  a bale 
of  cotton  with  England  for  one  pound  of  lace, 
she  must  pay  the  full  freight  of  the  return  trip 
to  the  vessel  which  carried  her  raw  cotton 
across  the  Atlantic ; for  there  is  no  raw  mate- 
rial of  equal  bulk  to  come  from  England  again, 
either  to  her  own  ports  or  those  of  the  West 
Indies.  The  farmer  who  hauls  fifty  bushels  of 
wheat  a day’s  journey  to  the  market,  and 
brings  home  the  price  in  silks  for  his  wife  and 
daughters,  must  charge  that  little  bundle  with 
the  freight  of  a ton  and  a half  of  goods,  or  else 
charge  the  wheat  with  the  expense  of  the  re- 
turn trip,  which  comes  to  the  same  thing ; for 
it  is  clear  that  even  Avhen  the  exchanged  pro- 
ducts bear  their  own  cost  of  transportation, 
the  difference  betiveen  the  freights  of  the  com- 
modities exchanged  must  fall  upon  the  heavier 
article.  This  is  always  against  the  exporter 
of  raAv  materials. 

It  is  not  denied  that  an  Indian  hunter  makes 
a large  profit  by  exchanging  a horse-load  of 
doer  and  beaver  skins  for  a blanket,  a rifle, 
and  a few  pounds  of  powder  and  lead  ; but  it 
cannot  be  doubted  that  if  he  continues  this 
trade  for  a generation  or  so,  tlm  purchaser  of 
liis  pedtries  will  become  the  owner  of  his  liunt- 
ing  grounds;  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  dif- 
ference of  color  or  race  that  can  lake  such  a 
traffic  out,  the  laws  of  trade.  In  due  time  the 
clock-peddlei-s  of  New  Kngland  must  take  i)os- 
HCHKion  of  the  fai'in-lands  of  old  Virginia,  if 
Virginia  continiu's  (o  (;xcha,ngo  her  raw  mate- 
rials for  V'ankee  clocks.  If  V'ii’ginia  had  the 
natural  monopoly  of  anything  which  I he  Avorld 
outside,  requires,  sIm;  c.ould  live  out  her  na- 
tional life,  and  g(!t  along  a.s  well  as  [jossible 
ujion  external  trad(q  until  sin;  ha<l  sold  out. 
and  exhnui'tcd  that,  speciality  of  Imm’S.  Hut, 
slni  liitit  nothing  that,  the  laws  of  nature  can 
take  cure  of  if  sIk;  neglecl.sit  h(‘rH(df;  and  she 
muHl  perish  like  a sfiendt hrift  if  sin*  neglects 
or  mistake.s  (lie  j)olicy  of  her  own  W(dfaro. — 


Ireland  exported  provisions  largely  when  her 
people  were  starving,  and  flax  when  they  were 
naked.  Ireland  had  nothing  which  the  laws 
of  nature  could  protect  against  the  laws  of 
trade ; she  had  nobody  to  take  care  of  her 
welfare  but  its  enemies,  and  she  Avas  reduced 
to  selling  her  food,  and  starving,  and  expatri- 
ating her  people;  a process  that,  in  Ireland 
and  Virginia  is  mildly  called  emigration. — 
With  ten  or  a dozen  people  to  the  scjuare  mile 
in  a new  and  fertile  country,  the  savage  sys- 
tem of  selling  abroad  whatever  nature  yields 
with  the  least  possible  help  of  skill  and  art, 
may  be  borne,  but  fifty  people  to  the  square 
mile  must  starve  or  run  off  their  excessive  pop- 
ulation. 

AGRICULTURE  OP  TEMPERATE  CLIMATES. 

A nation  of  the  temperate  zone,  having  the 
capabilities  of  a varied  industry,  must  culti- 
vate, and  protect  its  productive  liberties  against 
invading  competition  ; it  must  restrict  a re- 
pressing foreign  trade,  or  it  must  restrict  itself 
to  the  coarsest,  least  remunerative,  least  edu- 
cating foi’ms  of  labor.  Unmixed  agriculture 
cannot  develop  the  enterprise  and  skill  of  its 
people.  It  cannot  accomplish  that  division  of 
labor  which  brings  into  use  every  variety  of 
ability,  and  associates  a community  helpfully 
in  accumulating  wealth.  One-half  its  popula- 
tion— its  women — must  be  put  into  the  sup- 
ported class,  or  driven  to  unsuited  drudgery  ; 
another  quarter — those  not  physically  qualified 
for  the  labors  of  the  field — are  made  non-pro- 
ducers and  dependants,  and  all  the  remainder, 
except  a few  traders  and  cobblers,  are  kept  in 
competitive  rivalry,  under-working  and  under- 
selling each  other  in  that  foreign  market  to 
which  they  have  already  sold  their  industrial 
liberty,  for  the  most  trivial  of  all  considera- 
tions, a matter  of  nominal  ditference  in  price, 
at  the  sacrifice  of  the  ability  to  purchase  and 
consume  commodities. 

The  farming  interest  cannot  prosper  without 
a home  market.  Only  the  heaviest,  cheapest, 
and  smallest  variety  of  its  products  will  bear 
distant  transportation.  It  cannot  have  a home 
market  that  can  be  relied  upon  unless  two- 
thirds  of  the  population  are  engaged  in  other 
industrial  occupations  ; and  if  the  country  does 
not  protect  and  defend  these  against  foreign 
hostility,  all  the  conditions  of  groAVth  in  wealth 
and  power  must  fail. 

The  immediate  loss  by  protection  prices  to  a 
community,  ready  to  begin  a career  of  indus- 
trial independence,  is  a loss  in  values  merely, 
but  tlic  country  gains  productive poxver,  by 
Avliich  it  is  enabled  to  produce  an  indefinite 
mass  of  values;  or  this  loss  of  values  may  be 
regardofl  as  (he  price  of  training,  to  be  after- 
wards compensated  even  in  prices  to  purcha- 
sers by  a c('rtuin  reduction,  and,  immediately, 
more  Ilian  compensated  by  a general  distribu- 
tion of  benefits  I hrougliout  the  Avliole  commu- 
nity. i^upposo  a farmer  pays  ton  dollars  a 
year  more  for  the  iron  lie  consumes,  to  effect 
the  cn'ction  of  a fuimace  in  his  neighborhood, 
and  immediately  gets  a market,  for  green  crops 
wliicli  he  never  had  before,  worth  a hundred 


9 


dollars  a year.  Is  it  not  the  same  in  kind  with 
an  advance,  called  a subscription  or  donation, 
for  the  establishment  of  a school  or  college  so 
near  him  that  he  will  be  enabled  to  board  his 
own  children  who  require  tuition,  and  other- 
wise derive  from  it  the  advantages  of  every 
kind  which  it  will  be  sure  to  bring  to  him  and 
his  family?  Nay,  the  enhanced  cost  to  the 
consumer  of  products  which  require  protection 
to  introduce  and  maintain  their  manufacture, 
is  not  only  like  the  present  expenses  or  sacri- 
fices made  for  education  and  training  in  letters, 
arts  and  sciences,  but  it  is,  in  fact  and  effect, 
an  instance  of  such  training,  and  has  for  its 
warranty  every  consideration  of  prospective 
remuneration  to  the  public  which  recommends 
any  department  of  education  which  is  com- 
monly fostered  by  enlightened  communities, 
and  much  more  certain  of  the  expected  ben- 
efits. 

VICIOUS  QENERALIZATIONS  OF  THE  LET-ALONE 
SYSTEM. 

The  current  theories  of  political  economy 
owe  their  origin  to  a curious  class  of  college 
professors,  professional  litterateurs,  metaphy- 
sicians, and  philanthropic  world-menders,  and 
not  a few  tlieologicians  have  taken  leading  po- 
sitions among  the  authorities,  covering  with 
their  “pale  cast  of  thought  the  native  hue  of 
practical  affairs  and  turning  awry  their  cur- 
rents till  they  lose  the  name  of  action.”  They 
are  all  probably  aware  that  self-government, 
and  so  much  of  independence  as  personal  and 
moral  liberty  require,  is  the  true  policy  of  an 
individual’s  business  affairs ; but  they  recog- 
nise no  corresponding  rule  for  the  government 
and  protection  of  a nation,  which  is  but  the 
aggregate  of  some  millions  of  such  individuals. 
With  them,  atoms  must  be  cared  for  against 
atoms,  but  masses  against  masses  are  perfectly 
harmless  ; their  instances  of  contact  cannot  be 
collisions,  nor  their  motions  interferences ! 
They  would  protest  vehemently  against  a 
naval  invasion  intended  to  wrest  from  a nation 
its  political  liberties  ; but  they  can  see  no 
violation  of  rights,  no  mischief,  in  a mercantile 
fleet  invading  the  same  country  to  wrest  from 
it  its  industrial  freedom  and  prosperity. — 
Dealing,  as  they  do,  in  the  most  abstract  and 
general  ideas,  they  confuse  all  the  practical 
differences  existing  between  the  infinitely 
varied  forms  of  human  industry.  Give  them 
three,  or  four,  or  a half  a dozen  terms  of  art 
to  work  upon,  and  they  need  no  other  data ; 
capital,  labor,  exchange,  profits,  and  tlie  logic 
necessary  to  manipulate  them  into  arguments 
and  essays,  contain  their  whole  system,  and 
answer  all  their  purposes.  The  facts  of  his- 
tory, and  the  teachings  of  experience,  must 
be  philosophized  into  conformity,  or  silenced, 
as  the  successes  of  quackery  are  treated  by  the 
doctors,  by  ascribing  the  fortunate  results  to 
the  occult  powers  of  nature,  working  their 
way  against  all  intermeddlings. 

It  will  forward  our  present  aim  to  notice 
some  of  their  vicious  deductions  from  certain 
general  truths,  applied  to  all  particular  cases 
without  regard  to  conditions. 


Take,  for  example,  the  case  of  a country  like 
our  own,  comparatively  young,  exceedingly 
fertile,  capable  of  every  variety  of  agricultural 
production,  with  its  improved  lands  vei’y  cheap, 
and  millions  of  acres  to  be  had  for  little  more 
than  the  cost  of  preparing  them  for  the  plough, 
and,  in  all  respects,  eminently  fitted  for  fur- 
nishing provisions  and  raw  materials.  The 
inference  drawn  by  these  theorists  is,  that 
nature,  by  these  circumstances,  makes  farm- 
ing, planting,  and  lumbering,  our  distinctive 
occupations,  and  invites  our  energies  into 
these  special  fields  of  industry.  Now,  there  is 
nothing  in  a statement  so  general  as  this  that 
anybody  need  dispute.  But  there  are  some 
other  things  just  as  true,  which  must  be  con- 
sidered before  we  draw  from  it  a practical 
policy  of  national  conduct.  In  the  first  place, 
if  labor  is  really  the  source  of  wealth,  and  the 
various  forms  or  kinds  of  labor  are  not  equally 
productive,  it  behooves  us,  as  soon  as  we  are 
capable  of  choosing  among  them,  to  ascertain 
whether  exclusive  agricultural  labor  is  the 
most  productive  which  we  can  adopt.  We 
know,  very  certainly,  that  the  wages  of  labor 
are  not  equal,  and  that  the  products  are  also 
of  unequal  market  value.  The  work  of  an  ox 
is  held  at  a less  price  than  that  of  th6  man 
who  drives  him,  and  all  wages  are  graded  up- 
wards from  the  field  laborer  to  the  artist;  from 
the  body  servant  to  the  body  curer ; from  the 
teacher  of  the  alphabet  to  the  teacher  of  reli- 
gion ; from  the  newsboy  to  the  editor ; from 
the  ragpicker  to  the  author  of  the  book  ; from 
the  organist  on  the  pavement  to  the  prima 
donna  of  the  opera;  from  the  dressmaker  to 
to  the  portrait  painter.  Wages  grow  with  the 
education  and  training  required  for  the  labo- 
rer. The  value  of  the  work  is  the  measure  of 
the  wealth  it  yields,  understanding  wealth 
merely  in  the  sense  of  market  values. 

The  difference  between  skilled  and  unskilled 
labor  is  apparent  enough,  and  the  difference 
between  their  products  ought  not  to  be  forgot- 
ten when  a people  are  in  condition  to  make  an 
election  among  them.  Nature  has  no  more 
determined  that  any  particular  country,  capa- 
ble of  anything  else,  shall  confine  itself  to 
agriculture  than  that  Washington  should 
spend  his  life  as  a land  surveyor,  because 
there  was  a wilderness  full  of  that  work  for 
him  in  Virginia,  and  he  was  an  expert  in 
the  business.  The  matter  for  Washington  to 
decide,  in  choosing  his  occupation,  was  how 
he  could  best  promote  his  own  growth  in  worth 
and  power,  and  best  serve  the  general  welfare; 
and  this  Is  the  very  question  for  a community 
to  solve,  in  deciding  upon  its  industrial  policy. 
Nature  has  nothing  to  do  with  it  except  to 
furnish  the  means.  Man  is  her  master,  on 
condition  that  he  will  be  his  own.  Educated 
industry  is  no  longer  mere  toil,  muscle-work  : 
it  is  the  art  of  making  nature  work  in  man’s 
service  obediently.  The  farmer  who  drains, 
irrigates,  manures,  and  tills  his  fields  scien- 
tifically, trains  the  forces  inherent  In  the  soil 
from  the  drift  of  their  wild  liberty  into  the 
production  of  corn,  just  as  the  engineer  directs 
the  current  of  a stream  upon  the  wheels  of  the 


10 


mill  tliai  grinds  it;  ami  the  result  in  value  is 
always  in  the  raiio  of  the  mastership  attained. 
In  mechanics,  miraculous  control  of  nature’s 
forces  is  displayed,  and  the  effects  arc  equally 
marvellous  ami  beneficent.  The  screw,  the 
compound-pully,  and  the  wheel  and  axle,  which 
nature  does  not  possess,  overcome  all  the  forces 
she  can  array  in  resistance  to  man’s  dominion, 
and  the  agents  tliat  effect  the  conquest  rank 
according  to  their  respective  efficiency,  and 
share  the  resulti)ig  Avealth  in  the  like  ratio. — 
It  is  therefore  not  a matter  of  indifference,  to 
an  individual  or  to  a community,  what  sort  of 
labor  he  or  they  shall  adopt  Avhen  a choice 
presents  itself. 

TUE  CONSUMPTION,  NOT  THE  PPTCE  OF  COMMOOI- 
TIES,  MEASURES  NATIONAL  WELFARE. 

The  wealth  of  a community  is  measured 
more  accurately  by  the  amount  of  values  it 
consumes  than  by  any  other  standard.  It  is 
not  the  dearness  or  cheapness  of  goods  that 
determines  the  prosperity  of  a people,  but  their 
ability  to  purchase  them.  The  man  who  buys 
a fine  coat  and  luxurious  food  pays  high  prices 
for  them ; the  man  Avho  wears  and  eats  the 
coarsest  has  the  cheapness.  Is  it  a benefit? 
A southern  slave  may  be  kept  for  thirty  dol- 
lars a year ; his  master  expends  a thousand 
upon  himself.  This  marks  the  difference  of 
their  respective  conditions,  and  of  their  worth 
to  the  community  as  consumers.  Every  man 
in  the  country  is  the  poorer  for  every  poor 
man  in  it.  The  diminished  consumption  falls 
back  upon  the  general  capital  of  productive 
poAver  of  every  kind,  wasting  it  by  failure  of 
employment. 

That,  therefore,  is  the  highest  policy  of  a 
people  which  provides  for  the  highest  rate  of 
consumption.  Unmixed  agriculture  cannot  do 
this.  The  largest  export  of  our  farmers’  pro- 
duce does  not  exceed  five  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
annual  yield.  The  exports  from  the  forest  do 
not  add  more  than  tAVO  per  cent,  to  this  amount, 
which,  together,  would  enable  us  to  expend 
only  tlie  value  of  seven  per  cent,  of  our  actual 
product  in  for-eign  manufactures,  if  we  depended 
upon  that  resource  alone.  The  cotton  crop  of 
the  United  States  amounts  to  one-tenth  of  the 
annual  crop  of  the  Union,  but  Ave  arc  not  con- 
sidering ihe  products  of  hot  climates  noAV — 
they  are,  under  a different  law.  The  point  of 
inquiry  is,  Iioav  agricidf  ure  in  temperat  e regions 
aff(!ctH  I lie  ability,  of  the  pcojde  to  buy  and 
consume  the  commodities  of  manufacturing 
Slates;  and  Ave  Ihinl;  w(!  are  safe  in  saying 
that  an  a.LM'icull  ure  depeiuh'ut,  mainly  on  a 
foreign  market  e.'iiinoi,  under  any  circum- 
•itancca,  (■■.cliaiige  for  luanufacl  iires  and  tropi- 
cal produel.:  more  than  one  teutli  of  its  total 
jirodiicl.  I'or  Midi  :•  [lercenlage  as  tliishow 
meagre  mu  f be  llie  eoMSUm])l  ion  of  elotliing, 
book",  implements,  and  luxuries!  'i’luit  man 
i:  liviii)'  poorly  indeeil  wliose  I'mxl  is  llu'  nine- 
tenlli-'  of  hi  eonsumjil  ion.  ^Ve  may  be 
an  wered  Ijial  no  fteopleare  wholly  de|iend(‘n(, 
nor  can  In-,  for  all  the  eoinmodilies  wliiidi  (h(‘y 
efifi:  lime  ujion  fnreigii  nrlisniis;  that  lliere 
are  neee!';  arily  in  eveiy  disti  ict  dgmeslio  me- 


chanics, Avcaver.s,  lilacksrnilhs,  cabinet  makers, 
printers,  &c.  This  is  true,  but  at  what  rate 
must  such  artisans  Avork  if  t hey  are  to  meet 
the  products  of  t he  foreign  Avork.«ho])s  at  every 
villa, go  store?  Tliey  Avill  be  .just  as  much  im- 
poverished as  the  fanners  and  day  laliorcrs, 
under  the  agricultural  system.  There  can  be 
no  money  unde)'  such  a system,  for  the  demand 
for  manufactures  is  always  gr'cater  than  the 
means  of  paying  for  them.  Thei'e  is  nothing 
in  such  a conlition  of  things  to  invite  an  in- 
crease of  the  population  by  immigration,  and 
everything  to  hindei'  the  free  cornmniption  of 
a prosperous  country.  Provisions  Avill  be 
cheapened,  indeed,  but  Avages  Avill  be  so  much 
lowered  by  the  severity  of  the  competition  for 
labor,  that  consumption  Avill  be  kept  at  the 
loAvest  mark  in  value. 

AGRICULTURE  MUST  IIAA^E  A HOME  MARKET. 

But  the  development  of  agriculture  itself  is 
not  possible  except  under  the  influence  of  a 
home  market ; potatoes,  beets,  cabbage,  fruit, 
poultry,  veal,  mutton,  cheese,  butter,  milk, 
unless  transformed  by  the  labor  of  the  vicinity 
into  iron,  steel,  hardware,  linen,  cotton  and 
woollen  goods,  will  not  bear  distant  transpor- 
tation ; and  Avithout  a market  for  these,  farm- 
ing must  dAvindle  into  the  narrowest  circle  of 
the  coarsest  and  cheapest  of  its  products. 

We  think  it  must  be  obvious  that  unmixed 
agriculture  cannot  develop  itself,  nor  command 
a large  foreign  trade,  nor  induce  a large  home 
consumption,  nor  build  up  the  material  Avealth, 
the  population,  or  the  political  poAver  of  a 
people.  Let  nature  bestoAV  Avhat  fertility  and 
variety  of  soil  and  extent  of  territory  she  may, 
she  cannot  thereby  confine  the  industry  of  a 
community  to  the  upper  six  or  nine  inches  of 
the  surface.  The  limestone,  coal  and  ore 
that  lie  a little  deeper  are  as  much  and  as 
temptingly  offered  for  use  as  the  sods  which 
cover  them. 

lYhile  a country  is  so  new  that  its  timber  is 
in  the  way  of  the  farmer,  and  must  be  removed, 
it  may  as  well  be  sold  abroad  as  burnt  on  the 
ground ; and  Avhile  the  fertility  of  the  soil  is  so 
vigorous,  and  population  so  sparse,  that  the 
little  surplus  of  evei’y  man's  crop  must  Avaste 
if  not  sent  to  a foreign  )uarket.  an  exchange 
with  manufacturing  counti'ies  Avill  bo  t he  means 
of  turning  such  surplus  to  some  accoinit ; but 
in  a stage  of  iiopulaliou  and  cajutal  somcAvhat 
advanced,  it  may  be  fairly  asked  Avhy  a system 
of  exchange  Avitli  manufacturers  at  home  Avill 
not  do  infuiitely  )uore  for  the  fanning  iutei'est 
than  a distant  ono?  The  mercantile  .system 
puts  the  pi'ospei'ity  of  the  country  into  absolute 
dependence  upon  foi’eign  trade  the  most  un- 
stable of  all  rermueos  that  can  be  thought  of. 
(Ireat  Ib  itain  usually  takes  of  our  bread-stuffs 
and  ]irovisions  about,  lil'ly-si'ven  i-ents’  Avorth 
jier  head  of  her  total  population.  Would  not 
one  addiiional  blacksmith,  carpemter  or  tailor, 
Avith  his  family,  in  I'veiy  township  of  the  United 
States,  alfoi'd  a sti'ady  market  for  twice  this 
amount?  (Ireat  Britain  lakes  from  us  liftecii 
I millions’  worth;  Ave  produce  more  than  fifteen 
! Inindrod  millions’  AVorth.  iShe  gives  our  farm- 


11 


crs  a market  for  less  than  one  per  cent,  of 
their  produce ; the  thing  is  simply  contempti- 
ble. Our  natural  market  for  all  such  surplus 
is  in  the  islands  and  tropical  regions  of  our 
own  continent.  I^ast  year  all  the  manufactur- 
ing countries  together  took  but  twenty-two 
per  cent,  of  our  agricultural  exports.  The 
countries  whose  products  we  must  purchase 
or  do  without  took  seventy-eight  per  cent. 
Our  imports  from  tliem  did  not  interfere  with, 
but  every  way  helped,  our  own  industries ; 
while  the  people  who  sent  us  cloth,  cutlery 
and  iron  sent  us  back  fifty  per  cent,  more  food, 
worked  into  their  commodities,  than  we  sent 
them,  and  besides  displaced  our  own  capital, 
labor  and  enterprise  to  the  whole  extent  of  the 
imports.  How  absurd  to  talk  about  the  United 
States  being  naturally  a food-exporting  coun- 
try, with  the  fact  easily  demonstrated  that  we 
really  import  quite  half  as  much  more  food  in 
the  shape  of  commodities  than  we  export  in 
the  raw  state ! 

“But  the  whole  North  and  West  are  well 
fitted  for  the  production  of  sheep’s  wool.” — 
Yes,  admirably.  “ And  must  not  the  groover’s 
interest  in  this  great  enterprise  be  cared  for 
abroad  ? If  we  do  not  buy  largely  of  foreign 
goods  how  can  Europe  purchase  our  wool?” 
Well,  we  do  buy  very  largely,  and  with  what 
effect?  In  the  year  ending  July  1st,  1857,  we 
exported  nineteen  thousand  dollars’  worth  of 
wool  to  all  foreign  countries,  and  we  exported 
seventy-seven  thousand  dollars’  worth  of 
onions  in  the  same  year ! Moreover,  this  was 
about  the  proportion  of  our  exports  in  these 
two  agricultural  products  for  five  or  six  years 
together.  Is  not  this  ridiculous  ? Our  import 
of  pins  for  the  same  year  amounted  to  fifty- 
six  thousand  dollars,  and  of  figs  to  two  hun- 
dred and  twelve  thousand,  “A  fig  for  the 
foreign  wool  trade ; it  is  not  worth  a pin.” 

Are  we  not  right  in  saying  that  to  us  bread- 
stuffs,  provisions,  and  raw  materials  are  not  of 
any  importance  except  for  home  consumption 
and  internal  trade?  No  prosperous  country 
sells  food,  wool,  hides,  pig  metal,  or  anything 
else  until  the  last  touch  of  converting  skill  has 
been  put  upon  it.  Our  farmers  have  been 
strangely  imposed  upon  by  the  sophistries  of 
demagogues  and  dreamers,  aiming  to  array 
them  against  those  thousand  forms  of  produc- 
tive labor  which  alone  can  give  them  a home 
market,  and  free  them  from  their  bondage  to 
the  London  jobbers.  They  ought  to  know 
that  an  Illinois  farmer  could  make  more  money 
out  of  the  vegetables  raised  in  liis  fence  cor- 
ners, with  a manufactory  in  the  neighborhood 
demanding  such  little  luxuries,  than  all  his 
fields  will  pay  clear  in  wheat,  sent  three  or 
tour  thousand  miles  to  find  a market,  and  help 
to  glut  it  when  it  gets  there. 

Why  will  an  acre  of  land  near  Philadelpliia 
yield  from  three  to  five  hundred  dollars’  worth 
of  crops  a year,  and  not  more  than  twenty  or 
thirty  in  one  of  our  Western  praries?  Six 
hundred  thousand  people  whose  daily  walks 
are  on  paved  streets  are  not  rival  producers, 
but  enormous  consumers.  Could  we  but  drive 
the  foolish  idea  of  “ cheapness”  out  of  peo- 


ples’ heads,  we  might  get  them  to  believe,  per- 
haps, the  bold  proposition,  that  a country  is 
going  to  ruin  where  land  and  labor  are  not 
constantly  rising  in  price.  Especially  is  this 
true  of  labor,  which  is  the  only  property  of 
the  mass  of  the  people — tlie  mass  of  consumers. 
Whoever  does  not  endeavor  to  increase  their 
means  of  purchasing  is  simply  impoverishing 
his  customers,  no  matter  what  product  of  art, 
skill,  science,  or  learning  he  lias  to  sell.  And 
there  is  no  other  way  of  improving  the  condi- 
tion of  the  laborer  except  by  diversifying  the 
industry  of  the  country  to  the  greatest  practi- 
cable extent,  and  by  lifting  it  as  fast  as  possi- 
ble from  the  lower  styles  and  less  remunera- 
tive wages,  to  the  higher  qualities  and  market 
values. 

We  do  not  fear  the  exhaustion  of  our  read- 
ers’ patience,  for  we  expect  them  to  get  out  of 
temper  with  the  mischievous  nonsense  which 
we  are  exposing,  and  that  will  keep  the  interest 
well  awake  throughout  the  discussion  which 
is — to  be  continued. 

FREE-TRADE  POLICY  OF  THE  GULF  STATES THE 

UNION  COMPENSATES  THEM  FOR  PROTECTION 

PRICES. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  we  are  not 
constructing  an  economical  system  for  the 
Gulf  States  of  this  Union,  or  for  that  portion 
of  our  common  country  which  is  confined  by 
the  laws  of  nature  to  the  production  of  cotton, 
rice,  and  cane  sugar.  They  are  destined  to  be 
exporters  of  raw  material,  and  are  legitimately 
free  traders.  They  have  the  monopoly  of 
their  special  products;  or,  if  the}'-  have  not, 
they  have  nothing  which  they  can  by  any  ex- 
ercise of  civil  power  protect  from  foreign  com- 
petition. Until  cotton  and  rice  come  from 
abroad  to  undersell  them  on  their  own  planta- 
tions, there  is  nothing  regulative  or  restrietive 
of  foreign  trade  which  they  can  do  for  them- 
selves. To  advance  their  conditions  they  must 
push  their  tillage  to  the  utmost,  even  to  the 
exhaustion  of  the  soil,  and  then  they  must 
seek  fresh  lands,  for  the  same  system  of  ex- 
haustive treatment.  They  cannot  emancipate 
their  slaves  ; and,  to  keep  up  their  stock  they 
must  import  others  from  whatever  region  they 
can  get  them  cheapest.  Their  prosperity  rests 
upon  the  social  institutions  of  the  age  of  feud- 
alism. They  are  severed  from  the  fortunes  as 
well  as  from  the  sympathies  of  the  peoples 
who  are  advancing  in  the  modern  way  of  eco- 
nomical progress,  and  they  must  abide  the 
conflict  which  their  institutions  necessarily 
encounter  from  the  moral,  intellectual,  and 
social  forces  of  civilization.  On  what  ground, 
then,  it  will  be  asked,  can  we  require  them  to 
consent  to  those  measures  of  policy  by  which  we 
would  foster  the  unlike  interests  of  the  North- 
ern States  ? 

Our  answer  would  run  this : They  have  all 
the  benefits  of  a common  nationality  by  virtue 
of  the  Federal  Union.  Their  political  inde- 
pendence is  insured  against  the  world.  This 
would  be  cheaply  purchased  at  a much  higher 
price  than  all  the  concessions  which  we  ask 
can  possibly  cost  them.  An  army  might  be 


12 


extemporized  easily  enough  where  every  man 
is  a soldier,  but  a navy  they  cannot  command. 
The  frequent  failures  of  an  endeavor  to  es- 
tablish direct  trade  with  Europe  is  proof 
enough  of  this;  besides,  no  agricultural  people 
ever  had  a marine,  either  mercantile  or  naval; 
not  even  an  imposing  fishing  fleet.  The  wealth 
that  is  all  in  money,  is  not  that  wealth  which 
makes  a nation  strong,  or  maintains  its  inde- 
pendence against  foreign  foes.  The  wealth 
of  a nation  is  in  its  men,  their  numbers,  and 
the  interests  and  affections  which  inspire  pa- 
triotism. 

Again,  the  Union,  besides  giving  the  cotton 
States  security,  gives  them  also  the  cheapest 
Government  Vfhich  they  possibly  can  have. — 
The  tax-collector  never  visits  them  for  their 
contingent  to  support  the  army,  the  navy,  or 
the  Federal  authorities.  They  feel  taxation 
only  through  the  custom  house,  and  as  they 
do  not  consume  more  than  one-half  their  share 
of  imports  according  to  population,  they  are 
greatly  relieved  by  the  manner  of  the  levy. — 
By  the  Constitution  they  are  exempt  from  ex- 
port duties.  Their  exports  are  usually  as  one 
hundred  and  seventy-five  millions  to  one  hun- 
dred millions  from  the  North.  When  the  Con- 
stitution was  under  debate  in  the  Convention 
this  inequality  was  pressed,  but  the  North 
yielded  in  the  expectation  that  it  might  soon 
be  removed.  This  difference  of  seven  or  ten 
millions  a year  in  their  favor  fairly  pays  back 
their  share  of  protection  prices.  But  those 
protection  prices  are  in  themselves  the  very 
best  investments  which  they  can  make.  Every 
article  which  they  consume,  whose  production 
is  thus  encouraged  in  the  North,  goes  down  in 
price  below  all  former  rates  so  soon  as  we  get 
fairly  and  evenly  into  rivalry  with  the  foreign 
manufacture.  They  make  the  mistake  of  com- 
paring the  price  of  the  domestic  article  Avith 
that  of  the  foreign  after  our  competition  has 
reduced  it.  That  policy  is  a very  blind  one 
that  docs  not  favor  the  largest  possible  compe- 
tition among  the  producers  of  the  commodities 
it  must  purchase.  It  Avould  not  be  diilicult  to 
state  an  afxount  ctirrent  witli  the  cotton  States 
and  show  a l)iil!»nce  to  their  profit  every  Sat- 
uiday  night  in  the  year. 

Tliat  tin;  fre(‘  States  make  a large  ])rofil  by 
their  trade  with  the  slave  States  is  doubtless 
true;  but  that  is  tlie  law  of  trade  Avherc  the 
p:irtii-«  are  producers  iif  raw  materials  on  the 
one  ri  le,  and  mi'iadianl s a nd  manufacturers  on 
the  m liei  • II iiui  her  reason,  or  another  state- 
ment of  till-  rea-oM,  for  di^velopiiig  agricult ure, 
manulacl  lire  ,,  and  commerci^  in  due  propor- 
tion in  all  ec)unliie>  capabh'  <d'  the  more  proti- 
tiihle  indii  111-  . We  have  known  a Norlhern- 
inade  hed.  id  to  carry  oil’  the  price  of  twenty 
b.ile  (,|  e.iiNin.  When  the  exchange  is  lie 
tween  ail!  <■  kill  and  slav(>  drudgery,  of 
< 0111  e ; he  : 1 . i pidlit  goos  to  t he  liigliei'  style 
of  w<o  , I’ll, I there  ia  no  help  for  this;  and, 
a it  I n - 0 .1  lault,  they  should  not  maki'  it 
a e(,  i|>  iini  again  I U"  or  agaiiiHt  the  Union, 
«ir  lie  I n.  It  in  nothing  eh  e than  the 
nece  iiy  a 1 \ a ii  I a (O'  that  mind  mn.il  have 
over  mu  if  ihii  world  is  to  come  to  any 


thing  worthy  of  the  Divine  endeavor  expended 
upon  it  in  creation  and  providence. 

PROTECTION,  THE  POLICY  OF  THE  NORTHER^ 
SLAVE  STATES. 

But  it  is  not  quite  certain  that  slave  labor 
cannot  be  profitably  employed  in  making  at 
least  the  coarser  and  cheaper  styles  of  cotton 
cloth,  and  in  the  manufacture  of  iron.  'J’lio 
experiments  made  in  Georgia  and  Tennessee, 
under  the  taritf  of  1824  and  that  of  1828,  did 
not  fail  until  the  protection  failed.  Henry 
Clay  said,  in  1848,  that  the  cotton-growing 
region  was  destined  to  become  the  greatest 
cotton-manufacturing  region  in  the  world.  A 
lucky  device  in  machinery  and  a little  enter- 
prise, helped  by  the  possible  decline  of  price 
in  Europe  of  raw  cotton,  and  it  may  come  to 
to  be  spun  in  the  fields  where  it  is  grown,  as 
our  wheat  is  threshed  without  the  trouble  of 
housing  the  straw.  North  Carolina,  Mary- 
land, Virginia,  Tennessee,  and  Kentucky,  just 
as  certainly  as  Missouri,  are  destined  to  adopt 
the  better  forms  of  industry,  and  all  the  polit- 
ical events  of  the  time  show  that  they 
must  soon  become  more  and  more  self-sup- 
porting. 

But  finally,  if  the  Union  is  to  continue,  the 
necessary  expenses  of  the  Government,  en- 
hanced not  a little  by  a continuous  system  of 
Territorial  extension  made  in  the  interest  of 
slavery,  will  require  an  immense  revenue  to  be 
raised  either  by  import  duties  or  direct  taxes. 
The  south  must  needs  choose  the  former  for  all 
reasons,  and  this  settles  the  question,  and  of 
itself  balances  the  equities  of  the  money  ac- 
count between  us.  If  sixty  millions  must  be 
raised,  and  the  South  takes  only  half  the  im- 
ports which  would  meet  her  population  ratio 
of  the  revenue,  then  she  escapes  ten  millions 
a year  of  the  twenty  she  should  pay,  which 
cuts  down  the  twenty-five  per  cent,  average 
duties  of  a protective  tariff  to  about  twelve 
and  a half  in  the  partnership  settlement  with 
the  Northern  States.  She  is  compensated 
fully  in  half  a dozen  ways  for  all  taxation 
imposed  upon  her  in  protection  of  Northern 
manufactures.  This  is  our  answer  to  the 
Gulf  States.  To  the  Northern  slave  States  wq 
wouhl  say  that  this  is  just  the  time  to  avail 
themselves  of  the  opportunity  ofi'ered  them  by 
I lie  free  Stales.  The  day  is  coming  speedily, 
Avhen  New  Fngland,  to  monopolize  the  domestic 
trade,  will  re-preach  Southern  free  trade  to  its 
authors  with  a vengeance.  If  Ncav  England’s 
capital  and  skill  are  not  now  invited,  by 
adequate  protection,  to  move  forward  upon 
till'  nianufaci lire  ol  the  liner  styles  of  goods, 
she  will  fall  back  contentedly  uimn  the  coarser; 
and  then'  will  be  no  custom  houses  on  Mason 
and  Dixon’s  line,  when  Maryland,  A'irginia, 
Kentucky,  and  'I’ennessee  will  need  them. 
Tin'  fri'c  Stales  south  of  New  't Ork  and  of  the 
^'aiikee  Stales  id'  the  Nort Invest,  show  that 
they  are  read}',  as  they  always  have  been,  to 
cohere  with  all  I ho  South  Avhiidi  have  any 
allinily  nf  interest,  and  destiny  with  them; 
and  they  look  with  conlidenco  for  a fair  rcci- 
pioeily  of  good  feeling  and  good  service. 


13 


We  thus,  for  the  present,  dispose  of  the 
geographical  modification  of  the  protective 
policy,  as  it  applies  to  the  United  States.  We 
think  that  the  line  which  divides  the  North 
from  the  South,  in  economical  policy,  coin- 
cides with  the  thirty-fifth  parallel  of  latitude 
sweeping  through  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific  ocean,  varied  only  by  the  mountains 
and  plains  which  it  cuts,  always  deflecting 
southward  in  proportion  to  the  elevation  of 
the  surface,  which  would  carry  it,  westward  of 
the  Mississipi  river,  nearly  along  the  proposed 
track  of  the  Southern  Pacific  Railroad,  south 
of  El  Paso,  and  thence  along  the  “ divide” 
that  separates  the  Territory  of  New  Mexico 
from  Chihuahua  and  Sonora. 

These  views  of  our  question,  as  it  affects 
the  cotton  States,  asked  presentment  on  their 
own  account,  but  we  specially  intended  to  give 
emphasis  to  the  idea  that  economical  policy 
is  not  a thing  of  generalities  and  abstractions, 
made  up  of  unconditional  first  principles,  and 
calculated  only  for  the  illustration  of  logical 
perspective. 

PROTECTION  IS  NOT  TAXATION. 

Let  US  now  look  a little  more  exactly  into 
the  subject  of  protection  as  it  applies  to  the 
issue  pending  in  Congress. 

By  protection  we  mean  defense  of  new  in- 
dustrial enterprises,  whose  success  is  the  com- 
mon interest  of  the  community.  We  do  not 
mean  class  legislation,  or  the  establishment  of 
monopolies,  but  the  development  of  the  produc- 
tive power  of  the  nation,  with  a due  distribu- 
tion of  its  benefits  over  every  industrial  inter- 
est of  the  country.  If  protection  in  any 
instance  is  partial,  either  in  principle  or  in 
practical  operation,  we  repudiate  and  oppose  it. 
For  this  reason  we  condemn  it  when  carried 
either  in  terms  or  in  ejffect  to  the  extent  of 
prohibition.  Prohibitory  duties  are  never 
right  as  a measure  for  promoting  home  produc- 
tion. Their  adoption  indicates  the  incapacity 
of  the  country  for  the  undertaking.  So  far 
from  stimulating  enterprise  they  release  it 
from  the  operation  of  its  best  influences,  and 
all  the  time  that  the  market  must  wait  for  its 
supply  they  operate  like  a blockade  or  an  em- 
bargo upon  the  consumers.  Protection  means  : 
first,  freedom  of  industry  and  trade  at  home ; 
and  eventually  free  foreign  trade ; and  it  must 
have  nothing  in  it  of  the  spirit  of  war,  either 
between  classes  of  interests  at  home,  or  with 
the  nations  abroad;  just  as  Law  must  intend 
Liberty,  and  cannot  employ  force  except  for 
its  defense  and  maintenance. 

In  the  selection  of  the  commodities  on  which 
to  impose  protective  duties,  we  must  be  guided 
by  the  same  policy  that  induces  a man  to  give 
temporary  credit  to  his  neighbor  entering  upon 
a new  business — the  fair  probability  that  he 
will  soon  be  able  to  make  himself  independent 
of  all  such  assistance.  The  enterprise  must 
be  practicable,  promising,  and  generally  bene- 
ficial ; else  it  is  not  a case  to  be  assisted,  and 
is  not  entitled  to  the  favor. 

As  no  favoritism  to  classes  must  be  indulged, 
so  no  hostility  to  any  class  can  be  allowed. — 


The  notion  that  luxuries  should  bear  higher 
duties  than  articles  of  common  necessity,  has 
nothing  of  the  proper  policy  of  protection  to 
industry  in  it,  nor  has  it  anything  else  to  re- 
com.mend  it  to  the  acceptance  of  the  masses, 
but  the  contrary.  Protection  is  totally  mis- 
understood, and  fatally  abused,  when  it  is 
reasoned  upon,  or  employed  as  if  it  were 
identical  with  taxation.  It  means  and  intends 
the  protection  of  domestic  labor,  skill,  and 
enterprise,  and  of  the  capital  which  they  em- 
ploy. These  are  not  benefited  by  a tax  upon 
such  luxuries  of  manufacture  or  of  agriculture 
as  we  cannot  ourselves  produce.  Invidious 
distinctions  made  in  a tarifif  bill  between  the  con- 
sumption of  the  rich  and  of  the  poor,  have  no 
help  in  them  for  the  labor  of  the  poor.  More- 
over, those  things  are  called  luxuries  which 
the  poor  cannot  well  alford  to  purchase.  To 
burden  them  is  simply  to  put  them  still  further 
out  of  the  reach  of  the  poor ; and  like  other 
prejudices  of  classes,  it  only  operates  to  the 
injury  of  the  weaker  party,  and  under  the 
guise  of  a preference  for  the  common  people, 
really  keeps  up  the  worst  of  aristocratic  dis- 
tinctions— those  which  touch  the  essential 
interests  of  life.  Tea  and  cofl'ee  were  luxuries 
but  a little  while  ago.  So  soon  as  they  went 
into  the  free  list,  they  became  the  common 
fare  of  every  cottage  in  the  country.  Coffee 
was  taxed  five  cents  per  pound,  and  teas,  from 
fourteen  to  sixty-eight  cents  per  pound,  ac- 
cording to  quality,  from  the  year  1816  until  in 
1832,  when  they  were  made  free.  We  call 
the  duty  upon  these  tropical  products  taxes, 
for  these  duties  could  not  protect  any  home 
industry  of  ours.  Last  year  we  imported  214 
million  pounds  of  cofl'ee  for  consumption,  or 
about  seven  pounds  a head.  What  would  the 
laboring  people  have  gained  by  paying  about 
three-fourths  of  ten  millions  of  duties  upon 
this  article  in  order  to  tax  a luxury  ? Or  what 
would  they  have  gained  by  confining  them- 
selves to  coarse  and  inferior  teas,  at  fourteen 
cents  a pound  duty,  in  order  to  make  wealthy 
people  pay  sixty -eight  cents  on  theirs  ? Or  in 
the  matter  of  silks,  apply  the  doctrine  of 
luxury  to  them,  and  the  result  would  be  that 
the  wife  and  daughters  of  the  man  of  moderate 
means  whenever  they  go  into  the  street  or 
church  must  betray  the  economy  which  his 
circumstances  compel. 

When  taxing  is  the  object  for  the  uses  of 
revenue,  lay  it  on  wherever  it  should  be  borne, 
and  in  reference  to  the  ability  to  bear  it,  but 
never  allow  the  idea  to  enter  a tariff  for  pro- 
tection. 

PROTECTION  AND  REVENUE  CONCURRENT. 

But  a tariff  of  duties  under  our  system  must 
look  to  revenue,  also,  and  must  be  adjusted  to 
the  wants  of  the  Government.  Here  a ques- 
tion of  national  finance  mixes  itself  with  the 
policy  of  duties  ruled  by  the  requirements  of 
protection.  But  for  years  past,  and  doubtless 
for  years  to  come,  these  distinct  policies  have 
no  conflict.  It  would  not  be  difficult  to  show 
that  the  exigencies  of  the  Government  and  the 
just  protection  of  labor  coincide  very  exactly 


14 


in  their  requirements.  Under  a protective 
tariff  we  never  yet  suffered  a deficiency  of 
revenue.  Under  tariffs  somet})ing  below  the 
rates  required  for  protection  we  have  more  than 
once  had  a mischievious  excess  of  revenue, 
immediately  followed  by  a great  deficiency. 
The  first  reduction  of  duties  under  the  com- 
promise act  of  1833  took  effect  upon  the  1st 
January,  1834.  The  second  on  the  1st  January, 
183G.  At  the  close  of  the  year  183t)  there 
was  a surplus  in  the  Treasury  amounting  to 
forty  millions  of  Dollars.  But  by  the  year 
1842  the  Treasury  had  borrowed  over  fifty- 
three  millions,  and  left  ten  or  twelve  more  of 
its  liabilities  to  be  provided  for  in  the  follow- 
ing year.  In  like  manner  the  Treasury -was 
gorged  with  a surplus  of  seventeen  millions 
on  the  1st  of  July,  1857,  and  on  the  1st  July 
1860  its  debt  will  have  been  increased  above 
fifty  millions.  These  things  resulted  from 
tariffs  for  revenue,  with  incidental  protection ; 
no  such  effects  can  follow  a tariff  for  protec- 
tion, with  revenue  resulting.  Adequate  pro- 
tection effectually  prevents  excessive  importa- 
tion, and  so  prevents  excessive  revenue. 
While  such  immaturity  of  our  manufacturers 
remains  as  demands  it,  the  increased  importa- 
tion of  goods,  and  of  qualities  of  goods,  which 
we  cannot  fabricate  cheaply  will  keep  up  the 
revenue  by  transferring  it  from  the  lower  to 
the  higher  qualities  of  goods,  which  yield  in 
proportion  to  their  value,  a state  of  things 
that  vrill  be  compensatory  till  the  policy  of 
protection  shall  expire  and  be  replaced  by 
that  of  taxation — a change  that  the  country  [ 
will  have  years  to  wait  for  and  ample  time  to 
provide  for. 

We  do  not  believe  that  a state  of  things  ad- 
mitting universal,  absolute  free  trade  will  ever 
occur  among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  Eng- 
land is  still  receiving  one  hundred  millions  of 
dollars  per  annum  from  import  duties,  and  we 
have  no  doubt  the  highest  perfection  that  we 
can  attain  in  tlie  manufacturing  arts  in  a 
century  will  still  leave  us  a customs  revenue  as 
large  as  we  have  ever  had,  or  will  ever  need 
from  that  source.  But  we  are  not  speculating 
upon  the  far  future.  It  is  the  duties  and  ne- 
cessities of  the  })resent  that  concern  us,  with 
such  provision  for  the  future  only  as  will  give 
it  a fair  opportunity  for  taking  care  of  itself 
according  to  its  own  exigencies. 

AnVAl.OIlKM,  AND  HI’ECrFIU,  DUTIES. 

'I'lie  dint incf ion  wliicli  we  make  between 
duties  levied  iipoti  foreign  goods  foi’  the  jiro- 
t(!cfion  (A'  Iionu!  industry,  and  the  assessment 
of  taxes  npfU)  Hk;  properly  of  the  citizens  tor 
th(!  support  of  t Jov(n'nnienl , needs  a careful 
and  (dear  exposition.  So  mmdi  confusion  pre- 
vails in  I he  (lisenssion  of  this  point  that  we 
must  ir  I(  oni-  readers  to  ine(d  our  Klatement  of 
the  doclrim^  in  a ^'piril.  as  frank  and  favorable 
u ' I hey  ( in  coniftiand. 

In  levy  ing  internal  lax(‘S  iho  (i<f  nttlorrr/i  rule 
of  u'  -(  iiiciil  <li'(|  rihnie':  the  hurdiui  (Mpiilahly 
tipon  all  till'  various  ■ pi'oies  of  taxable  properly. 
A fi  < '-d  p(  r eenlage,  ncaansling  to  valuation, 
cover'',  fa irly  and  nnilbi  inly  all  its  subjends,  llni 


intention  being  that  every  property-lioldcr 
shall  contribute  to  the  support  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  the  ratio  of  his  means.  The  ad  valorem 
principle,  with  this  universality  of  range,  ha.s 
no  place  in  the  policy  of  protection.  If  it  had, 
there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  a free  list  in 
the  tariff-tables,  and  there  could  be  no  differ- 
ence of  rates  among  its  several  schedules.  To 
admit  the  ad  valorem  principle  of  assessment 
in  imposts  is  to  sweep  away  the  whole  doctrine 
of  protection.  To  give  it  any  influence  what- 
ever in  our  reasonings  upon  protection  is  to 
confound  and  vitiate  the  whole  process.  All 
the  debates  that  we  have  had  in  Congress,  and 
out  of  it,  between  the  ad  valorem,  and  specific 
duty  parties,  owe  their  inconclusivencss  to  a 
misunderstanding  of  this  matter.  In  the  tariff 
of  the  Prussian  or  German  Commercial  Union, 
commonly  called  the  Zoll-verein,  the  principle 
and  the  policy  of  protection  are  purely  pre- 
sented. It  lays  a duty  of  fifty  rix  dollars  per 
Prussian  quintal  on  all  cotton  goods,  Avithout 
respect  to  quality  or  price.  The  quintal  being 
equal  to  113  pounds  avoirdupois,  and  the  rix 
dollar  worth  three  shillings,  English,  it  is  equal 
to  £7  10s.  per  113  pounds. 

Now,  the  effect  of  this  duty  is,  that  a quintal 
of  coarse  shirting  worth  four  pence  per  yard, 
and  £8  6s.  per  quintal,  pays  the  equivalent  of 
ninety  per  cent,  ad  valorem. 

A quintal  of  superior  shirting,  worth  one  shil- 
ling per  yard,  and  £22  17s.  7d.  per  quintal, 
pays  a duty  of  32|-  per  cent. 

A quintal  of  printed  cottons,  worth  Is.  6d.  a 
j yard,  and  £47  9s.  per  quintal,  is  equal  to  15|- 
per  cent. 

A quintal  of  fine  printed  cottons,  worth  2 s.  6d. 
a yard,  and  £84  15s.  per  quintal,  pays  but  SJ 
per  cent. 

Here  the  idea  of  taxation,  and  the  ad  valorem 
principle  of  assessment  which  rules  it,  are 
obviously  excluded,  but  not  more  so,  in  fact, 
than  in  our  own  tariffs,  with  their  free  lists, 
and  half  a dozen  different  rates  of  dutj'^  on  the 
articles  in  the  several  schedules. 

The  ad  valorem  doctrine  requires  a level  rate 
of  percentage  upon  all  imports,  intends  taxa- 
tion only,  and  has  no  thought  of  protection  in 
it.  In  all  our  reasonings  upon  the  adjustment 
of  a protective  tariff,  therefore,  we  must  en- 
tirely exclude  it,  or  we  will  be  confused  at 
every  step  we  take. 

The  Zoll-verein  intended  the  protection  of 
the  lower  styles  of  home  manufactures,  Avhich 
the  German  people  Avere  capable  of  ])roducing 
at  the  time  of  its  adoption,  ami  properly  ab- 
stained from  taxing  the  tine  goods,  Avhich  they 
could  not  yet  manufacture,  it  did  not  exclude 
those  fine  goods  from  its  markets,  nor  the  com- 
mon ])eO|)le  from  their  use.  It  secured  the 
labor  of  its  artizans,  in  the  work  they  Avero 
ca|)al)Ie  of,  from  a,  deslrnctive  foreign  comjic- 
lilion;  and,  Avhile  it  thus  enabled  them  to 
))nr(diase,  took  care  to  ke('p  the  fine  goods 
Avilhin  their  roach.  'I'iio  ad  valorem  ]n’inciple 
ap])lied  to  imposts  is,  in  its  vei'y  nature,  a rule 
oi' disei  iminal ion  against  the  poor,  and  Avorks 
only  in  the  ini  en'sl  s of  I he  aristocrats  of  prop- 
erly. In  internal  taxation  it  graduates  the 


15 


public  burdens  to  the  means  of  the  citizens, 
and  is  entirely  equitable;  but  as  applied  to 
imposts  it  has  only  one  effect,  and  that  is  the 
exclusion  of  the  poor  from  the  enjoyment  of 
anything  but  the  coarsest  articles  of  consump- 
tion. The  protective  principle  works  just  the 
other  way  ; it  lightens  the  cost  of  tropical  pro- 
ductions and  the  finer  manufactures  to  the 
common  consumer,  and  secures  to  him  the 
profit  of  manufacturing  the  cheaper  articles 
for  the  entire  domestic  market.  It  finds  him 
employment  in  the  kind  of  work  he  can  do, 
and  supplies  him  the  means  of  purchasing  the 
commodities  of  foreign  production  which  he 
needs,  and  keeps  down  their  price  within  his 
reach. 

PROTECTION  NOT  CLASS  LEGISLATION. 

These  views  upon  the  ad  valorem  rule  in  im- 
port duties  may  be  met  with  any  quantity  of 
declamatory  generalizings  ; but  it  will  be  seen, 
after  a little  careful  reflection,  that  every  prin- 
ciple of  reasoning  with  which  they  are  opposed 
is  borrowed  over  from  the  theory  of  internal 
taxation,  which  has  no  sort  of  analogy  or 
parallelism.  It  will  be  askedj  would  you  tax 
heavily  the  cheaper  fabrics  of  common  con- 
sumption, and  exempt  the  luxuries  of  the  rich  ? 
To  which  we  would  answer,  if  we  must,  that 
this  complaint  fits  the  circumstances  of  nobody 
in  the  United  States,  except  the  slaveholders, 
who  must  buy  the  coarse  clothing  of  their  stock 
because  they  cannot  make  it.  To  them  our 
answer  has  been  made  in  a previous  article 
But  to  the  free  laborer  and  consumer  of  the 
country,  we  answer  again,  that  in  a true  pro- 
tective duty  there  is  no  taxation  upon  anything 
or  anybody.  It  is  a defense,  not  a burden. 
The  man  who  spins  or  weaves  a yard  of  cloth 
is  interested  above  all  others  in  the  security  of 
a market,  and  a fair  price  for  it,  though  all 
his  interest  in  it  is  his  wages.  The  man  that 
has  an  article  of  furniture,  a pair  of  shoes,  a 
barrel  of  flour,  a book,  to  sell,  or  medical  or 
legal  services  to  dispose  of,  or  depends  in  any 
way  upon  his  industry  for  his  living,  is  con- 
cerned that  every  species  of  labor  of  which 
his  neighbors  are  capable  should  be  perfectly 
defended  and  well  rewarded. 

The  only  people  in  the  United  States,  north 
of  the  35th  parallel  of  latitude,  who  have  no 
personal  interest  in  protection,  are  salaried 
officers,  annuitants,  and  those  who  live  upon  the 
interest  of  their  money.  We  would  not  fail  in 
social  duty  to  any  class  of  men ; therefore, 
we  would  say  to  public  functionaries,  we  can 
better  afford  to  double  your  salaries  than  to 
keep  the  community  on  low  wages,  low  prices, 
and  little  work,  that  your  money  may  com- 
mand the  more  of  their  products  and  services ; 
and  we  are  ready  to  increase  your  stipends 
with  all  rise  in  the  price  of  living,  whether 
induced  by  protection  prices,  or  the  California 
gold  mines.  But  to  annuitants  and  money- 
lenders, we  are  obliged  to  answer,  we  can  do 
nothing  for  you,  you  do  nothing  for  the  com- 
munity; you  have  thrown  yourselves  idly  upon 
the  industry  of  society  for  support,  and  we 
owe  you  nothing,  especially  we  owe  no  obliga- 


tion to  keep  your  silver  dollar  worth  a bushel 
of  wheat,  or  a day’s  work  forever. 

Is  it  not  curious  that  every  objection  to  the 
fair  protection  of  industry  turns  out  an  arrant 
piece  of  aristocracy,  when  fairly  understood ! 

The  principle  of  protection  knows  nothing 
of  the  distinctions  in  society.  It  is  not  blind- 
ed by  the  words,  rich  and  poor,  capital  and 
labor,  freedom  and  restriction.  It  has  no  pre- 
judices, preferences,  or  charities.  It  is  nothing 
else  or  other  than  a system  of  national  policy, 
looking  to  the  common  welfare  and  providing 
for  it,  leaving  all  parties  alike  to  make  their 
respective  advantage  of  it,  and  securing  to  them 
the  opportunity.  It  is  the  general  providence 
of  a good  Government  that  cares  for  and  se- 
cures the  means  of  national  welfare,  and  leaves 
the  distribution  of  the  benefits  to  the  agency 
of  the  individuals  as  they  are  respectively 
capable  of  appropriating  them. 

USE  OF  ADVALOREMS  IN  ASSESSING  DUTIES. 

But  is  the  value  of  a commodity  to  have  no 
effect  in  levying  protective  duties  ? We  answer, 
that  the  value  is  to  be  considered,  but  we  must 
take  care  to  keep  clear  of  ad  valorem”  in  our 
reasonings.  The  words  have  the  infection  of 
falseness  in  every  letter.  In  the  offices  of  our 
county  commissioners  they  are  excellent,  good 
words,  but  they  no  sooner  get  a lodgement  in 
the  custom-house  than  they  turn  malignant  in 
spirit,  and  at  every  opportunity  run  into  fraud 
and  perjury. 

The  value  of  an  article  is  the  cost  of  its  pro- 
duction at  the  time,  or  more  exactly  the  cost 
of  reproduction.  The  cost  of  such  reproduc- 
tion in  our  money  of  account  is  so  many  dol- 
lars and  cents ; but  England  can,  or  to  under- 
sell us  in  our  market,  will  produce  it  upon  our 
wharves  at  so  much  less.  To  protect  our  own 
industry  against  this  hostility  we  must  add  the 
difference  of  these  values  to  that  of  the  English 
article,  in  the  shape  of  a protective  duty. — 
Here,  of  course,  there  is  a certain  proportion 
of  values,  and  that  proportion  may  be  expressed 
by  a percentage.  The  figures  used  in  the  cal- 
culation may  all  be  most  conveniently  rendered 
to  the  understanding  in  percentages,  and  some 
of  them  naturally  take  that  form,  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  difference  in  the  rate  of  interest 
upon  the  capital  employed  in  manufacturing 
in  the  two  countries.  Here  the  values  of  the 
raw  material,  of  the  labor,  of  the  transporta- 
tion, and  insurance,  are  all  to  be  used  in  the 
estimate,  and  the  difference  between  the  cost 
of  the  English  and  American  product  is  best 
expressed  and  grasped  when  expressed  as  so 
much  per  cent.  So  far  the  use  of  values  and 
per  cents,  is  safe  and  necessary.  In  the  ab- 
stract process  of  assessing  the  duty,  they  serve 
and  render  all  the  service  they  can  be  trusted 
with.  When  the  duty  is  to  be  levied  it  must  be 
thrown  into  specifics — so  much  money  on  the 
pound,  yard,  cubic  or  square  foot,  or  number, 
as  will  best  describe  and  indentify  the  article 
to  be  reached.  It  might  be  said  that  here  ad 
valorems  are  the  rule  of  assessing,  and  specifics 
the  rule  of  levying  the  duty ; but  it  is  the 
safest  never  to  trust  a phrase  that  is  accus- 


IG 


tomed  to  take  the  bit  in  his  teeth  and  run  away 
with  the  rider. 

The  examples  of  England  and  France,  in 
this  respect,  are  so  striking  and  so  significant 
that  we  will  close  this  article  with  a brief 
statement  of  them.  Tlie  French  tariff  has 
above  fifteen  hundred  articles  in  its  schedules. 
Of  these,  but  twenty  are  under  ad  valornns, 
and  they  are  such  as  game  and  poultry,  clock 
and  watch  works,  new  clothing,  household 
linen,  ai-tificial  flowers,  furniture,  optical  and 
nautical  instruments,  laces  and  millinery. — 
Everything  else  is  weighed,  measured,  or 
counted,  and  in  very  few  instances  are  articles 
of  the  same  description,  classified  by  their  re- 
spective values,  liowever  variant. 

Under  the  English  tariff  twenty  millions  of 
pounds  sterling  are  raised  from  imports.  Of 
this  sum  but  two  hundred  and  eighty  thousand 
pounds  by  ad  valorems ; or  less  than  one  and 
a half  per  cent,  of  the  whole.  Yet  to  get  rid 
of  this  fag-end  of  the  nuisance  Parliament  ap- 
pointed a commission  to  inquire  and  report  a 
remedy.  They  sat  long  enough,  and  worked 
attentively  enough,  to  report  about  1500  pages, 
8vo,  of  testimony  taken  on  the  subject  from 
all  sorts  of  dealers,  manufacturers,  and  im- 
porters. They  expurgated  the  schedules  to 
the  utmost  of  iheir  ability  ; among  other  de- 
vices, putting  artificial  flowers  under  a specific 
duty  by  charging  them  by  the  cubic  foot,  and 
no  allowance  for  vacancy  in  the  packages. 

MISCHIEFS  OF  AD  VALOREMS  IN  PRACTICE. 

We  have  stated  the  objections  to  ad  valorem 
as  a principle  in  the  assessment  of  import  du- 
ties. As  a rule  for  levying  them  it  is  always 
hostile  to  the  protection  of  domestic  industr3\ 
Even  where  a free  list  is  fairly  made,  and  va- 
ried rates  are  fixed  among  the  schedules  of  a 
tariff  law,  intending  protection  by  its  exemp- 
tions and  discriminations,  the  taxation  princi- 
ple, inseparable  from  the  ad  valorem  rule, 
always  disappoints,  and  frequently  counter- 
acts, the  protective  policy  of  classification  and 
graduation. 

If  imported  goods  stood  for  ten  or  fifteen 
years  together  at  the  same  price  per  ton,  yard, 
or  dozen — and  if,  at  the  same  time,  the  values 
were  easily  and  certainly  ascertained  for  the 
purpose  of  applying  the  protective  duty — then 
values  and  quantities  would  permanently  cor- 
respond, ancJ  it  would  be  a matter  of  indiffer- 
ence wlietlier  the  duty  in  the  tables  were 
expressed  in  specifics  or  ad  valorems.  But  the 
tluctuati(ms  of  prices,  and  tlic  faithlessness  of 
invoices,  each  and  both,  are  so  freciucnt  and 
so  great  as  to  disap[)oint  any  such  reliance. — 
Tliey  are,  in  fact,  flic  very  evils  to  be  guarded 
against.  A single  article  will  illustrate  this 
geneial  |)r()[)OHil ion.  For  tliirty  years  (before 
]81H)  the  avciage  |»ric<5  of  mcridiant.  bar  iron 
in  I'ingifind  was  $11  per  ton.  Hut  within  that 
tinur  il  Jiiid  l)(!cn  up  to  .$1)2.50  and  down  to 
ill  |HI7  it.  was  at  $10.80,  and  in  1818 
at  $2-. HI);  (hiiH,  in  one  year  a duty  of  thii'ty 
jter  cent,  ((d  ralurem  fell,  in  its  ])rnfecfive 
force,  f rom  $12.21  to  $8.f)  l per  Ion,  and  in  the 
ne.xt  year  f|8|'.lj  ;{|8,875  tons  of  Ihirojiean 
iron  were  thiowii  uimn  ilie  American  mai  ket 


at  prices  far  below  the  cost  of  ])roduction. 
Thus  ad  valorem  duties  helj)  England  to  repair 
her  mistakes  and  retrieve  her  recklessness. 
She  has  capital  enough  to  w.ait  safely  for  the 
b.alance  of  profit  and  loss  of  a number  of  years 
of  fluctuation  in  prices.  What  she  loses  by 
glutting  our  market  one  year  will  be  abund- 
antly repaid  the  next,  when  our  furnaces  and 
forges  are  closed.  The  worst  blunder  she  can 
make  in  over-production  p.ays  well  by  beating 
down  the  American  competition  for  the  Ameri- 
can market,  which  would  otherwise  hold  lier 
down  to  the  lowest  rate  of  profit,  until  it  would 
finally  drive  her  clean  out  of  the  field. 

When  iron  is  high  in  England  and  the  other 
markets  of  the  world,  the  imports  are  light 
and  an  ad  valorem  duty  puts  on  an  absurdly 
high  protection,  rather  a severe  tax  upon  the 
consumer.  When  it  is  low,  tlic  duty  is  entirely 
unprotective,  and  the  Government  derives  a 
greatly  reduced  revenue.  But  the  worst  and 
most  malignant  feature  of  the  system  is,  that 
whenever  the  foreign  manufacturers  undertake 
to  break  down  our  domestic  industry,  by  re- 
ducing prices  say  one-third,  ad  valorems  con- 
spire, by  a sacrifice  of  their  third,  to  consum- 
mate the  mischief.  Thus  they  are  chargeable 
with  taxing  the  consumer  preposterously  when 
prices  are  high,  and  conspiring  with  the  enemy 
when,  by  low  prices,  they  aim  at  the  ruin  of 
the  home  production. 

That  which  is  true  of  imported  iron  is  true 
of  every  other  commodity  which,  in  a condition 
of  industrial  freedom  and  independence,  we 
might  make  for  ourselves. 

The  essential  vice  of  ad  valorems  is  that  they 
operate  as  taxation  and  not  as  protection. 
This  is  their  original  sin,  and  settles  their  fate 
at  the  bar  of  a just  judgment.  But  they 
abound  in  actual  transgression.  Fraudulent 
under-valuations  seem  to  be  inseparable  from 
the  system.  “Custom-house  oaths”  are  a 
proverb  of  profligacy.  Vast  quantities  of 
goods  are  imported  on  foreign  account,  and 
the  agents  are  hired  to  swear  them  through. 
The  American  merchant  must  stifle  his  con- 
science, cheat  his  own  Government,  or  suffer 
the  difference.  The  system  offers  rewards  to 
frauds  and  perjuries. 

As  against  specific  duties,  ad  valorems  have 
another  offense  to  answer  for.  When  the 
value  of  the  goods  fixes  the  amount  of  duty, 
inferior  qualities  bear  it  best,  and  the  market 
is  deteriorated  to  the  extent  to  which  the  im- 
posture can  be  practised.  An  experienced 
clothier,  cannot,  at  the  distance  of  six  feet, 
distinguish  between  a coat  of  Brussels  cloth 
worth  two  dollars  a yard  and  one  worth  twice 
that  amount.  Ilow  arc  the  common  purchasers 
to  distinguish  them  by  any  oxaminulion  ? But 
])ut  on  a specific  duly,  and  you  compel  the 
foreigner  to  send  his  best  of  the  class  or  kind, 
for  that  will  best  bear  the  charge.  This  is 
true,  and  as  important  as  true,  of  all  textile 
fabrics. 

American  cutlery  has  almost,  excluded  the 
foreign  from  use.  The  protective  duties  have 
not  of  themselves  been  sutlicient  to  produce 
the  result  ; but  as  every  man  who  buys  a saw, 


17 


a plane-bit,  a chisel,  a hatchet,  a razor,  or 
knife,  is  a judge  of  the  article,  and  will  not  be 
worried  with  a mean  one,  he  escapes  the  im- 
position of  imported  trash;  and  the  home  man- 
ufacturer escapes  its  competition.  But  in  the 
matter  of  cloths,  not  one  customer  in  a thou- 
sand knows,  or  can  discover  by  the  use,  the 
difference  between  the  grades  of  quality  which 
afford  margin  enough  for  successful  rivalry 
with  the  goods  of  those  who  live  among  us,  and 
are  responsible  for  the  quality  of  their  manu- 
factures. Cosmopolitan  traffic  scarcely  needs 
a character,  for  the  world  is  wide,  and  fools 
and  dupes  are  plenty. 

But  ad  valorems  are  inconsistent  with  the 
steadiness  of  protection  which  productive  in- 
dustry requires.  A retail  storekeeper  need 
care  but  little  about  the  fluctuation  of  prices. 
It  can  hardly  be  so  rapid  as  to  catch  him  with 
a heavy  stock  on  hand.  But  the  man  who 
builds  a furnace,  or  cotton  or  woollen  factory, 
might  almost  as  well  be  tenant  at  will  of  the 
land  he  builds  them  on  as  exposed  to  the  ups 
and  downs  of  twenty-five,  fifty,  or  one  hundred 
per  cent,  in  the  course  of  a year  or  two.  A 
small  grog-shop  can  get  along  under  ad  valo- 
rems upon  the  foreign  liquors  it  requires,  for 
it  can  sell  out  between  Sunday  morning  and 
Saturday  night ; but  what  is  to  become  of  an 
establishment  costing  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  dollars  in  fixtures  and  stock,  and  of  the  labor 
and  wages  of  the  workmen,  if  the  products  are 
to  be  run  ruinously  low  by  every  change  in  all 
the  world  beyond  the  ocean  ? We  are  not 
bound  to  take  off  the  shock  of  every  indiscre- 
tion, and  abide  the  hostility  of  every  rival  in- 
dustry, in  Europe. 

Now,  ad  valorems  have  the  effect  of  putting 
us  into  full  partnership  in  all  the  losses  of  our 
rivals,  but  they  give  us  none  of  the  profits. — 
In  a word,  they  are  a contrivance  of  the  enemy, 
and  are  manufactured,  like  the  worst  of  their 
goods,  not  for  home,  but  for  foreign,  consump- 
tion. 

SPECIFIC  DUTIES  VINDICATED  BY  OUR 
EXPERIENCE. 

Specific  duties  stand  steadily  to  the  defence 
of  our  industrial  liberties.  They  take  no  cri- 
minal share  in  the  foreign  conspiracy  against 
us.  They  cannot  entirely  protect  against  very 
low  prices,  but  they  never  betray  us.  There 
is  no  dodge  and  no  fraud,  no  uncertainty  and 
no  treachery,  in  them. 

It  is  now  so  long  since  we  have  had  a tariff 
of  specific  duties,  that  the  proposition  to  re- 
store them  may  seem  like  a novelty  and  an 
experiment  to  the  men  whose  experience  in 
political  affairs  dates  no  more  than  twenty 
years  back.  But  really  ad  valorems  are  the 
innovators,  coming  in  upon  the  first  opportu- 
nity after  the  policy  of  free  trade  got  on  foot, 
and  intended  to  counter-work  whatever  of  pro- 
tection there  might  be  left  in  a tariff  construct- 
ed mainly  with  a view  to  revenue.  The 
national  treasury  requires  money  enough  in 
amount  from  imposts  to  foster  home  production 
fairly,  if  properly  distributed  and  justly  and 
steadily  levied.  Under  the  tariffs  devised  to 
B 


promote  the  interests  of  labor,  and  supply  the 
wants  of  the  Government,  at  least  ten  years 
of  continuous  trial  had  proved  specific  duties 
to  be  adequate,  uniform,  and  reliable,  as  the 
mode  of  collecting  the  customs;  evenly  and  very 
accurately  covering  the  current  expenditure, 
and  gradually  providing  for  the  discharge  of 
the  public  debt,  until  it  was  by  their  happy 
operation  extinguished.  When  the  debt 
of  the  two  wars  was  discharged  and  the 
country  was  beyond  all  example  prosperous 
and  happy,  our  politicians  seemed  to  think 
that  they  were  in  the  midst  of  a revolution  in 
financial  affairs  ; that  the  policy  which  paid 
the  national  debt  and  secured  the  national 
welfare  must  be  obsolete  as  soon  as  it  was 
vindicated  by  its  results ; and  thereupon 
followed  such  a train  of  mischiefs  as  might 
almost  give  countenance  to  the  old  saying, 
“A  national  debt  is  a national  blessing.” 
Very  certainly  the  extinguishment  of  ours  was 
followed  by  a dispensation  of  national  curses. 
The  only  substantive  thing  for  which  a Federal 
Union  would  be  formed  by  wise  men — the  more 
effectual  guardianship  of  the  interests  of 
labor — was  found  to  be  unconstitutional ! And 
the  only  honest  way  of  levying  the  duties, 
which  necessarily  must  be  raised,  was  dis- 
covered to  be  unequal.  It  had  not  the  equity 
of  ad  valorem  taxation  in  it ; and  so,  specific 
duties  went  by  the  board,  and  our  system  ever 
since  has  not  only  drifted  away  from  the  bene- 
ficent care  of  the  productive  power  of  the 
people,  but  it  has  more  than  once  run  into 
national  bankruptcy  and  financial  disgrace. 

Previous  to  the  Compromise  act  of  1833, 
we  had  thirteen  general  tariffs.  In  all  of  them 
ad  valorems  were  avoided,  directly  by  specific 
duties  wherever  they  could  be  applied  in  form; 
and  where  they  could  not,  by  mixed  specifics 
and  ad  valorems  in  some  cases,  and  in  others, 
by  minimum  valuations,  which  of  itself 
converts  a percentage  into  a specific  duty  in  its 
effects.  No  one  can  look  over  these  old  tariffs, 
from  the  first  which  Hamilton  produced  to 
the  last  that  Clay  helped  to  frame,  without 
being  struck  with  the  evident  solicitude  shown 
in  every  item  to  escape  the  fraud  and  treachery 
of  ad  valorems  in  the  national  customs. 

protection,  a failure  if  not  general  and 

IMPARTIAL. 

A nation  must  have  a considerable  extent  of 
territory,  must  possess,  within  its  own  domain, 
a full  variety  of  raw  material  and  natural 
agents,  labor  to  spare  from  agricultural  pro- 
duction, adequate  capital,  and  be  situated  in  a 
temperate  climate,  if  it  would  enter  upon 
manufacturing  enterprise  with  success ; and 
without  these  conditions  it  cannot  avail  itself 
of  the  protective  system. 

If  its  limits  are  too  narrow,  and  its  resources 
too  scanty,  Federal  Union,  acquisition  of  ad- 
ditional territory,  or  commercial  treaties,  must 
be  resorted  to  in  order  to  put  it  into  the 
required  condition.  The  countries  that  are 
thus  qualified  must  diversify  their  labor,  and 
apply  it  in  the  most  profitable  departments  of 
production,  if  they  would  develop  their  agri- 


18 


culture,  increase  their  -vveaKh,  extend  their 
commerce,  and  escape  industrial  vassalage  to 
the  more  advanced  nations.  Ilut  they  must 
do  it  tliorouglily,  if  they  would  command  all 
its  advantages.  No  single  or  limited  number 
of  interests  must  be  selected,  to  the  neglect  of 
otliers.  One  limb  of  the  industrial  body  must 
not  be  groAvn  and  the  others  dwarfed  or  ne- 
glected. That  is  unequal,  therefore  inequi- 
table, and  as  certainly  injudicious.  They  must  | 
all  be  brought  out  in  fair  proportion,  that  each 
member  may  strengthen  tlie  whole. 

Very  erroneous  notions  are  afloat  in  this 
respect.  The  iron  and  coal  of  Pennsylvania 
are  put  into  the  position  of  preferred  claim- 
ants, by  some  of  the  advocates  of  the  bill  be- 
fore the  Senate,  and  the  majority  of  its  oppo- 
nents make  concessions  in  behalf  of  this  branch 
of  our  industry,  as  if  they  believed  they  can 
buy  off  our  urgency  for  a protective  tariff  by 
indulging  this  pet  selfishness  of  ours.  All  this 
is  a mistake.  The  Pennsylvania  iron  men 
want  customers,  consumers  for  their  iron,  vv^ith 
the  ability  to  purchase  abundantly.  They 
want  the  whole  country  to  build  their  bridges, 
make  their  fences,  construct  their  public  and 
private  buildings  of  iron,  and  so  oj^en  a gene- 
rous market  for  all  the  iron  that  Pennsylvania, 
Virginia,  Tennessee,  and  Missouri,  can  find 
the  capital  and  labor  to  supply.  They  want 
every  form  of  industry  to  be  revived,  and  every 
man  made  able  to  consume  their  products. 
Protection  for  them,  without  a corresponding 
enlargement  of  their  market  at  home,  is  simply 
throwing  them  upon  the  ocean,  to  contend  with 
England  for  the  foreign  trade.  This  is  every 
way  absurd. 

The  manufacturing,  mining,  and  mechanical 
products  of  Pennsylvania  in  1850  are  rendered 
by  the  census  at  one  hundred  and  fifty-five 
millions  of  dollars,  of  which  her  pig  iron, 
castings,  and  wrought  iron,  amount  to  no  more 
than  twenty-one  millions,  or  less  than  one 
seventh  of  the  whole.  If  her  iron  could  even 
be  held  at  this  rate  amid  the  decay  of  her 
other  industries,  it  would  not  repay  the  State 
the  expense  of  the  music  in  a Presidential 
campaign.  If  the  nation  of  our  proper  cus- 
tomers is  to  be  kept  poor,  no  favoritism  can 
make  our  iron  masters  rich.  Moreover,  we 
feel  indigiiant  at  tlie  implied  selfishness,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  folly,  of  pushing  Congress 
to  grant  us  a monopoly  of  its  favors. 

The  woollens  and  cottons  manufactured  in 
tlie  State  are  a larger  interest  in  value  than 
our  iron;  iron  and  coal,  however,  holding  this 
difl(;renc(!  from  tluun,  that  tliey  enijiloy  a much 
larger  nundier  of  laborers  in  the  production  of 
equal  valu(;H.  'J'ho  raw  material  of  the  textile 
faliricM  is  a con,si<J(Mable  jiart  of  the  market 
value  of  the  commodity.  Nearly  all — all  but 
about  tive  to  ten  percent,  of  the,  price  of  iron  is 
labor,  and  the  profits  of  cufiital.  Cenei-ally, 
manufactur<!K  pay  twenty-live  jier  cent.,  of 
llicir  cost  to  wagci:;  iron  jiays  full  seventy-five 
per  cent,.  Sxmqit  for  tin*  dilference  of  human 
jnterc.l  in  the  respect  iv(!  (oises,  iron  holds  no 
sneh  )to  ition  in  tin;  larilf  policy  us  is  com- 
monly accorded  to  it.  'I’he  men  employed  in  I 


making  it  cannot  consume  the  agricultural 
surplus  of  the  whole  country.  They  do  not 
number  one  in  ten  of  the  mechanics  and 
artisans  of  the  country.  They  cannot  open  a 
flourishing  market  for  all  the  architects,  cloth- 
ing and  furniture  makers,  and  keep  the  mer- 
cantile marine,  and  the  internal  arnl  coastwise 
transporters,  busy  besides.  Protection  is  not 
a thing  to  be  huckstered  by  place-men  and 
I politicians;  it  is  apolicy  addressing  its  claims 
to  statesmen  and  patriots  ; it  is  the  demand  of 
the  people  whose  capital  is  their  labor-power, 
upon  whatever  pure  democracy  there  is  in  the 
government,  to  guard  tliat  labor  from  foreign 
invasion,  as  earnestly,  at  least,  as  the  soil  or 
rhe  flag  of  the  nation  from  the  attacks  of  their 
foes.  They  are  not  asking  anybody  for  cheap 
clothes  and  cheap  furniture,  but  for  a fair 
chance  to  earn  enough  of  them  for  the  comfort 
of  living,  the  means  of  educating  their  children, 
and  promoting  their  own  fortunes. 

OBJECT,  RULE  AND  MEASURE  OF  PROTECTirB 
DUTIES. 

As  we  have  elsewhere  said,  the  prosperity  of 
a people  is  measured  by  their  consumption. — 
Whatever  system  of  management  fails  to  pro- 
vide for  an  increase  of  consumption  is  a starv- 
ing one.  In  a country  so  new,  and  feeble  in 
labor-power  and  capital  that  it  cannot  manu- 
facture, ail  import  duties  merely  diminish  con- 
sumption, and  are  mischievous.  In  a country 
so  much  advanced  in  manufacturing  power 
as  to  need  no  defence  against  foreign  products, 
import  duties  are  only  excises  under  another 
name.  Here,  again,  as  they  tend  to  diminish 
consumption,  they  are  mischievous.  For  the 
same  reason,  duties  upon  tropical  products  are 
always  wrong ; they  diminish  consumption  and 
lessen  the  comforts  of  life  to  the  poor. 

The  general  principle  is,  that  whenever  im- 
port duties  check  or  abate  the  ability  of  the 
people  to  consume,  they  are  wrong.  When- 
ever imports  throw  the  ready  and  waiting 
labor  of  the  country  out  of  employment, 
they  diminish  consumption,  and  ought  to  be 
checked  by  protective  duties.  The  people  that 
have  the  most  wants,  and  these  most  amply 
supplied — in  other  words,  the  greatest  con- 
sumers— are  the  happiest,  the  most  civilized, 
and  farthest  advanced  in  all  that  marks  the 
ditference  betAveen  savage  and  cultivated,  edu- 
cated, and  ennobled  humanity. 

There  are  a million  of  people  now  in  the 
United  States  whose  labor  is  worth  a dollar  a 
day.  Throw  them  idle  for  a year  and  you  have 
diminished  their  power  of  consumption  to  the 
amount  of  three  hundred  millions,  nine  tenths 
of  which  Avould  be  of  domestic  products.  All 
ourcxiiorls,  including  cotton  for  the  year,  will 
not.  settle  that  account.  They  are  not  greater 
in  amount,  and  they  Avould  be  larger  still  than 
lliey  are  if  the  labor  of  that  million  of  men 
hail  been  employed  in  jiroviding  them. 

W(^  have  said  enough  to  mark  our  oi)inion 
of  a pailial  ])roteclion.  When  Ave  have  felt 
obliged  to  tell  the  South  that  “iron  is  our 
uiggm-,”  tlial  they  might,  underslaml  by  their 
own  tenacity  Avhat  avo  mean  to  do  about  it,  wo 


19 


could  have  wished  rather  that  they  would  un- 
derstand the  matter  as  it  is.  Indeed,  we  may 
be  allowed  to  extend  the  wish  to  vast  multi- 
tudes of  the  people  whose  highest  interests  are 
directly  involved  in  it. 

It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  we  should  ex- 
amine the  House  bill  in  detail,  testing  all  its 
items.  We  profess  no  such  universal  business 
knowledge.  But  finding  all  classes  of  interests 
carefully  considered,  we  think  it  probable  that 
they  are  justly  dealt  with.  We  do  not  say  ac- 
curately, but  honestly  treated.  To  make  a 
perfect  tariff  law,  unexceptionable  in  all  its 
provisions,  would  require  a Congress  of  adepts 
in  all  the  multiform  arts  and  occupations  of 
the  time.  In  lack  of  such  formality  of  con- 
sttltation,  the  committee  that  prepared  it  have 
been  more  than  a year  employed  upon  it,  using 
all  the  help  they  could  get,  and  it  is  to  be  pre- 
sumed that  they  have  done  the  best  for  it  that 
could  be  done.  It  has  no  faults  of  principle  in 
it;  those  of  specialities  are  not  very  obvious 
or  numerous,  and  they  are  amendable  by  ex- 
perience. 

DOCTRINE  OF  JEFFERSON,  MADISON  AND  JACKSON. 

It  will  be  in  place  just  here  to  cite  some  of 
the  authorities,  whom  our  readers  reverence, 
in  support  of  our  general  propositions  : 

Thomas  Jefferson,  writing  to  J.  B.  Say,  in 
March,  1815,  after  carefully  perusing  that 
gentleman’s  treatise  upon  political  economy, 
which  is  the  very  Koran  of  free  trade,  says  : 
“ The  duties  we  lay  on  all  articles  of  foreign 
manufacture  which  prudence  requires  us  to 
establish  at  home,  with  the  patriotic  determina- 
tion of  every  good  citizen  to  use  no  foreign 
articles  which  can  be  made  within  ourselves, 
without  regard  to  difference  of  prices,  secures  us 
against  relapse  into  foreign  dependency.” 

Mr.  Madison,  in  his  letter  to  Joseph  C. 
Cabell,  Esq.,  dated  18th  September,  1828, 
arguing  the  constitutionality  of  protection, 
says : 

“The  power  (‘to  regulate  trade’)  has  been 
understood  and  used  by  all  commercial  and 
manufacturing  nations,  as  embracing  the 
object  of  encouraging  manufactures.  It  is 
believed  that  not  a single  exception  can  be 
named.  This  has  been  particularly  the  case 
with  Great  Britain,  whose  commercial  vocabu- 
lary is  the  parent  of  ours.  Such  was  under- 
stood to  be  a proper  use  of  the  power  by  the 
States  most  prepared  for  manufacturing  in- 
dustry, whilst  retaining  the  power  over  their 
foreign  trade.  Such  a use  of  the  power 
by  Congress,  accords  with  the  intention  and 
expectation  of  the  States,  in  transferring  the 
power  over  trade  from  themselves  to  the 
Government  of  the  United  States.  If  Con- 
gress has  not  the  power,  it  is  annihiliated  for 
the  nation — a policy  without  example  in  any 
other  nation,  and  not  within  the  reason  of  the 
solitary  one  in  our  own.  That  the  encourage- 
ment of  manufactures  was  an  object  of  the 
power  ‘to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign 
nations’  is  proved  by  the  use  made  of  the 
power  for  that  object  in  the  first  session  of  the 
first  Congress  under  the  Constitution,  when 


among  the  members  present  were  so  many 
who  had  been  members  of  the  Federal  Conven- 
tion which  framed  the  Constitution,  and  of  the 
State  Conventions  which  ratified  it ; each  of 
these  classes  consisting,  also,  of  members  who 
had  opposed,  and  who  had  espoused  the  Con- 
stitution in  its  actual  form.  It  does  not 
appear  from  the  printed  proceedings  of  Con- 
gress on  that  occasion,  that  the  power  was 
denied  by  any  of  them.  And  it  will  be 
remarked  that  members  from  Virginia,  in 
particular,  as  well  of  the  anti-Federal  as  the 
Federal  party,  did  not  hesitate  to  propose  du- 
ties and  to  suggest  even  prohibitions  in  favor 
of  certain  articles  of  her  production.  By  one 
a duty  was  proposed  on  mineral  coal  in  favor 
of  Virginia  coal-pits ; by  another,  a duty  on 
hemp  was  proposed,  to  encourage  the  growth 
of  that  article ; and  by  a third,  a prohibition 
even  of  beef  was  suggested  as  a measure  of 
sound  policy.” 

Upon  the  economical  policy  of  protection, 
Mr.  Madison,  in  his  letter  to  Mr.  Cabell, 
30th  October,  1828,  says,  among  other  things : 

“There  are  cases  where  a nation  may  be  so 
far  advanced  in  the  prerequisites  for  a particu- 
lar branch  of  manufactures  that  this,  if  once 
brought  into  existence,  would  support  itself ; 
and  yet,  unless  aided  in  its  nascent  and  infant 
state  by  public  encouragement  and  a confi- 
dence in  public  protection,  might  remain,  if 
not  altogether,  for  a long  time  unattempted, 
or  attempted  without  success.  Is  not  our 
cotton  manufacture  a fair  example  ? * * * 

The  number  must  be  small  that  would  now 
pronounce  this  manufacturing  boon  not  to  have 
been  cheaply  purchased  by  the  tariff  which 
nursed  it  into  its  present  maturity. 

“ Should  it  happen,  as  has  been  suspected, 
to  be  an  object,  though  not  of  a foreign  Gov- 
ernment itself,  of  its  great  manufacturing 
capitalists,  to  strangle  the  infant  manufactures 
of  an  extensive  customer,  or  an  anticipated 
rival,  it  would  surely,  in  such  a case,  be  in- 
cumbent on  the  suffering  party,  so  far  to  make 
an  exception  to  the  “let-alone”  policy  as  to 
parry  the  evil  by  opposite  regulations  of  its 
foreign  commerce.” 

General  Jackson,  to  Dr.  Coleman  in  1824, 
said:  “ So  far  as  the  tariff  bill  before  us  em- 
braces the  design  of  fostering,  protecting,  and 
preserving  within  ourselves  the  means  of  na- 
tional defence  and  independence,  particularly 
in  a state  of  war,  I would  support  it.  * * * 
Heaven  smiled  upon  and  gave  us  liberty  and 
independence  and  national  defence.  If  we 
omit  or  refuse  to  use  the  gifts  which  He  has 
extended  to  us,  we  deserve  not  the  continuation 
of  his  blessings.  He  has  filled  our  mountains 
and  our  plains  with  minerals,  with  lead,  iron, 
and  copper,  and  given  us  climate  and  soil  for 
the  growth  of  hemp  and  wool.  These  being  the 
grand  materials  of  our  national  defence,  they 
ought  to  have  extended  to  them  adequate  and 
fair  protection,  that  our  manufacturers  and 
laborers  may  be  placed  in  a fair  competition 
with  those  of  Europe,  and  that  we  may  have 
within  our  country  a supply  of  those  leading 
and  important  articles  so  essential  in  war. 


20 


Beyond  this  I look  at  the  tariff  with  an  eye 
to  the  proper  distribution  of  labor  and  revenue, 
and  with  a view  to  discharge  our  national 
debt.  * * 1 will  ask,  Wliat  is  the  real  situa- 

tion of  the  agriculturist?  Wliere  has  tlie 
American  farmer  a market  for  his  surplus 
product?  Except  for  cotton,  he  has  neither  a 
foreign  nor  a home  market.  * * Draw 

from  agriculture  the  superabundant  labor ; 
employ  it  in  mechanism  and  manufactures, 
thereby  creating  a home  market  for  your 
breadstuffs,  and  distributing  labor  to  the  most 
profitable  account  and  benefits  to  the  country. 
Take  from  agriculture  in  the  United  States 
six  hundred  thousand  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, and  you  will  at  once  give  a home  mai’ket 
for  more  breadstuffs  than  all  Europe  now 
furnishes  us.  In  short,  sir,  we  have  been  too 
long  subject  to  the  policy  of  the  British  mer- 
chants. It  is  time  that  we  should  become  a 
little  more  Americanized,  and  instead  of  feeding 
the  paupers  and  laborers  of  England,  feed  our 
own,  or  else,  in  a short  time,  by  continuing  our 
present  policy,  we  shall  all  be  rendered  pau- 
pers ourselves.’’ 

HISTORY  OF  OUR  TARIFFS,  AND  OF  MANUFAC- 
TURES. 

In  the  confidence  that  our  readers  are  keep- 
ing company  with  us  in  the  study  of  our  sub- 
ject and  are  sufficiently  interested  to  accept 
such  aid  as  we  can  give  them  gladly,  we  pro- 
pose to  sketch  the  history  of  our  national  ex- 
perience, so  far  as  it  may  serve  to  throw  light 
upon  the  policy  of  protection. 

Almost  within  the  memory  of  living  men, 
the  United  States  have  risen  from  the  complete 
subjection  of  colonial  dependence,  and  from 
the  condition  of  separate  provinces,  united  by 
no  political  bond,  to  that  of  a compact,  rich, 
and  independent  nation,  outranking  the  Em- 
pires of  the  Old  World  in  territorial  extent  and 
varied  capabilities  of  production;  equaling 
the  strongest  of  tliem  in  population;  composed 
of  the  representatives  of  all  the  races ; com- 
bining tlie  climates  and  soils  of  the  whole  hab- 
itable globe  ; shaped  into  a continent  conveni- 
ent for  internal  commerce,  with  a sea-coast  so 
deeply  indented,  and  a lake  and  river  system 
so  tlioi-ouglily  dissecting  the  mass,  tliat  a do- 
main only  one-sixth  less  than  the  area  covered 
by  the  fifty-nine  or  sixty  empires,  states,  and 
republics  of  Europe,  and  of  equal  extent  with 
the  Homan  Empire  at  its  largest,  is  cut,  for 
the  puT-pose  of  internal  and  exteiaial  commerce, 
into  twenty  islarnls  of  about  the  size  of  Ureat 
Britian.  Here  are  all  the  conditions,  in  ample 
proportion,  for  the  I'eheai'sal  of  the  world’s 
liistory  ; here,  there  is  nothing  wanting  to  work 
out,  a world’s  d(!st iny  ; and  Imi'c  we  have  pi'e- 
cipitated  upon  ns  e.V(!ry  social,  polil  ical  and  eco- 
noinieiil  proljlem  of  th(i  past,  and  tin;  future  of 
hnnnin  liislory,  with  the  pi^opb;  of  every  kind- 
red and  fdimo  Cor  its  subjects  and  ag(nds. 

liven  in  the  infancy  of  sindi  a couidry,  the 
history  o(  its  (roniinercc!  and  industry  coidd  not 
fail  to  be  more  instruct  ivo  than  any  other.  - 
'J'he  dev<'lopment  has  Immui  so  rapid,  tin*  pei  iods 
of  free  tiade  and  j)r(;teclion  have  been  so  fre- 


quent and  sudden,  the  results  are  so  plainly 
marked,  that  the  varied  experiences  must  bo 
conclusively  demonstrative  of  the  doctrines 
and  policies  so  well  tried. 

The  colonies  were  held  under  restraint  so 
absolute  that,  beyond  the  common  domestic 
industry  and  the  most  ordinary  mechanical 
employments,  no  kind  of  manufactures  was 
permitted.  In  1750,  a hatter-shop  in  Massa- 
chusetts was  declared  by  Parliament  to  be  a 
nuisance ; in  the  same  year  an  act  was  passed 
to  encourage  the  importation  of  pig  iron  from 
the  colonies,  because  charcoal,  then  exclusively 
used  in  smelting  the  ore  in  England,  was  ex- 
hausted, but  forbidding  the  erection  of  mills, 
tilt-hammers,  slitting  or  rolling  mills,  or  any 
establishment  for  the  manufacture  of  steel. — 
In  the  same  year,  the  great  Earl  of  Chatham, 
alarmed  at  our  enterprise,  declared  that  the 
colonies  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  manufac- 
ture so  much  as  a hob-nail.  Joshua  Gee  (in 
his  work  upon  Trade,)  at  the  same  time  said, 
“manufactures  in  American  colonies  should  be 
discouraged,  prohibited.” 

He  continues:  “If  we  examine  into  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  inhabitants  of  our  planta- 
tions, and  our  own,  it  will  appear  that  one- 
fourth  part  of  their  product  redounds  to  their 
own  profit,  for  out  of  all  that  comes  here,  they 
only  carry  back  clothing  and  other  accommo- 
dations for  their  families,  all  of  which  is  of 
the  merchandise  and  manufacture  of  this  king- 
dom. New  England  and  the  Northern  colo- 
nies have  not  commodities  and  products  enough 
to  send  us  in  return  for  purchasing  their  ne- 
cessary clothing,  but  are  under  very  great 
difficulties ; and,  therefore,  any  ordinary  sort 
sell  with  them,  and  ivhen  they  have  grown 
out  of  fashion  with  us,  they  are  new-fashioned 
enough  for  them.” 

The  British  navigation  laws  were  enacted  in 
the  same  spirit,  and  to  the  same  intent — to 
hold  the  colonies  in  industrial  and  commercial 
vassalage  to  the  mother  country.  It  was  this 
systematic  and  despotic  monopoly  of  manu- 
facturing industry  and  the  carrying  trade  that 
caused  the  American  Revolution  ; the  tax  upon 
tea  was  only  the  immediate  cause  of  the  ex- 
plosion. 

The  interruption  of  commerce  with  Great 
Britian  during  the  War  of  the  Revolution, 
awakened,  per  force,  the  manufactures  of  the 
States  that  had  the  materials  and  the  labor- 
power,  so  that,  at  its  close,  they  found  them- 
selves considerably  advanced  in  the  power  of 
self-supply.  Alexander  Hamilton,  in  1791, 
arguing  the  practicability  of  manufactures  in 
this  country,  and  the  duty  of  encouraging 
them,  says;  “Jt  is  certain  that  several  im- 
])orlant  bra  nches  have  grown  up,  and  nourished 
with  a rapidity  which  surprises,  affording  an 
encouraging  assurance  of  success  in  future 
attempts.”  Ho  proceeds  to  enumerate,  in  de- 
tail, seventeen  grand  tle])art nients  which  were 
th(*n  well  established,  among  which,  however, 
cottons,  woollens,  and  cutlery  do  not  occur, 
exce[)t  as  the  two  former  arc  embraced  in  the 
following  impressive  ])a.ragraph  of  his  report: 
“ Besides  manufactories  of  these  articles,  which 


21 


are  carried  on  as  regular  trades,  and  have  at- 
tained to  a considerable  maturity,  there  is  a 
vast  scene  of  household  manufacturing,  which 
contributes  more  largely  to  the  supply  of  the 
community  than  could  be  imagined  without 
having  made  it  an  object  of  particular  inquiry. 
This  observation  is  the  pleasing  result  of  the 
investigation  to  which  the  subject  of  this  re- 
port has  led,  and  is  applicable  as  well  to  the 
Southern  as  to  the  Middle  and  Northern  States. 
Great  quantities  of  coarse  cloths,  coatings, 
serges,  and  flannels,  linsey  woolseys,  hosiery 
of  wool,  cotton  and  thread,  fustians,  jeans 
and  muslins,  checked  and  striped  cotton  and 
linen  goods,  bed  ticks,  coverlets  and  counter- 
panes, tow-linens,  coarse  shirtings,  sheetings, 
toweling  and  table  linen,  and  various  mixtures 
of  wool  and  cotton,  and  of  cotton  and 
flax,  are  made  in  the  household  way,  and,  in 
many  instances,  to  an  extent  not  only  sufficient 
for  the  supply  of  families  in  which  they  are 
made,  but  for  sale,  and  even  in  some  cases  for 
exportation.  It  is  computed  that  in  a number 
of  districts,  two-thirds,  three-fourths,  and  even 
four-fifths  of  all  the  clothing  of  the  inhabitants 
are  made  by  themselves.” 

The  household  manufactures  here  spoken  of 
held  their  place  until  the  general  introduction 
of  machinery,  after  the  war  of  1812,  sup- 
pressed them;  but  the  factories  which  the  War 
of  Independence  had  protected  and  fostered 
immediately  fell  under  the  inundation  of  for- 
eign goods  after  the  peace  of  Paris.  A mem- 
ber of  Congress,  speaking  of  that  crisis,  said : 
“We  bought,  according  to  the  doctrine  of 
modern  theorists,  where  we  could  purchase 
cheapest,  and  were  soon  inundated  with  for- 
eign commodities ; English  goods  were  sold  at 
lower  rates  in  our  maritime  cities  than  at 
Liverpool  and  London.  Our  manufactures 
were  ruined ; our  merchants,  even  those  who 
had  hoped  to  enrich  themselves  by  importation, 
became  bankrupt,  and  all  these  causes  united 
had  such  a disastrous  influence  upon  agricul- 
ture that  a general  depreciation  of  real  estate 
followed,  and  failure  became  general  among 
proprietors.” 

PROTECTIVE  POLICY  PROMINENT  AMONG  THE 

CAUSES  AND  OBJECTS  OF  OUR  NATIONAL 

UNION. 

This  state  of  things  continued  from  the 
peace  of  Paris  to  the  adoption  of  the  Federal 
Constitution,  and  there  was  no  help  for  it,  for 
the  Old  Confederation  gave  no  power  to  regu- 
late commerce  for  the  protection  of  the  home 
industry.  This  evil,  we  believe,  more  than 
any  other,  impelled  the  States  to  draw  closer 
the  bonds  of  political  union,  and  to  grant  the 
needful  powers  to  Congress  to  establish  an 
effective  system  of  commercial  regulations  for 
the  nation.  Mr.  Madison  says:  “During  the 
delays  and  discouragements  experienced  in 
the  attempts  to  invest  Congress  with  the  neces- 
sary powers,  the  State  of  Virginia  made  vari- 
ous trials  of  what  could  be  done  by  her  indi- 
vidual laws.  She  ventured  on  duties  and 
imposts  as  a source  of  revenue.  Among  the 
projects  promoted  by  the  want  of  a Federal 


authority  over  commerce  was  that  of  a concert, 
first  proposed  on  the  part  of  Maryland,  for  a 
uniformity  of  regulations  between  the  two 
States,  and  commissioners  were  appointed  for 
that  purpose.  It  was  soon  perceived,  however, 
that  the  concurrence  of  Pennsylvania  was  as 
necessary  to  Maryland,  as  of  Maryland  to  Vir- 
ginia, and  the  concurrence  of  Pennsylvania 
was  accordingly  invited.  But  Pennsylvania 
could  no  more  concur  without  New  York,  than 
Maryland  without  Pennsylvania,  nor  New  York 
without  the  concurrence  of  Boston,  &c.  These 
projects  were  superseded  for  the  moment  by 
that  of  the  Convention  at  Annapolis,  in  178G, 
and  forever  by  the  Convention  in  Philadelphia, 
1787,  and  the  Constitution  which  was  the  fruit 
of  it.” 

This  historical  statement  of  Mr.  Madison 
shows  how  distinctively,  among  the  other  causes 
operating  to  the  same  end,  the  necessity  for 
regulating  our  foreign  trade,  and  holding  it 
obedient  to  all  the  interests  and  necessities  of 
the  States  included  in  the  loose  union  of  the 
Old  Confederation,  was  felt,  and  how  prominent 
it  was  in  leading  them  to  a “more  perfect 
union,”  and  better  provision  for  the  “general 
welfare.” 

No  sooner  was  the  first  Congress  under  the 
new  Constitution  assembled,  than  it  was  beset 
with  petitions  for  the  protection  of  home  in- 
dustry, not  excepting  commercial  New  York, 
or  planting  South  Carolina.  The  sentiment  of 
the  day  was  emphatically  and  impressively 
illustrated  by  the  fact  that  Washington  wore 
a coat  of  domestic  cloth  on  the  day  of  his  in- 
auguration, “giving,”  as  a New  York  journal 
of  the  day  said,  “ to  his  successors  and  to  le- 
gislators of  after  time,  an  indelible  lesson 
as  to  the  means  of  promoting  national  pros- 
perity.” 

Our  first  tariff  bill  was  approved  by  General 
Washington  on  the  4th  July,  1789,  sixty-five 
days  after  the  organization  of  the  first  Con- 
gress. The  preamble  to  the  Act  reads  thus  : 
“Whereas  it  is  necessary  for  the  support  of 
Government,  for  the  discharge  of  the  debts  of 
the  United  States,  and  the  encouragement  and 
protection  of  manufactures,  that  duties  be  laid 
on  goods,  wares,  and  merchandise  imported,” 
&c.  The  duties  of  this  Act  were  in  but  few  in- 
stances above  ten  per  cent. ; the  coal  of  Vir- 
ginia getting  a protection  of  two  cents  per 
bushel,  hemp  sixty  cents  per  cwt.,  and  twine  and 
pack-thread  made  of  it,  two  dollars  per  cwt., 
snuff  ten  cents  per  lb.,  and  cigars  five  percent. 
These  rates  were  inadequate  for  any  of  the 
purposes  enumerated  in  the  preamble  to  the 
Act.  Another  tariff,  passed  on  the  10th  Au- 
gust, 1790,  by  the  same  Congress,  recites  the 
preamble  of  the  first  Act,  adding, — “And 
whereas  the  support  of  Government  and  the 
discharge  of  the  said  debts  renoer  it  necessary 
to  increase  the  said  duties,”  &c.  It  added  to 
the  rates  of  the  first  in  the  majority  of  articles 
twenty-five,  fifty,  and  one  hundred  per  cent. 
The  happy  results  of  these  provisions  for  the 
public  welfare  became  immediately  apparent — 
instantly,  indeed,  because  the  confidence  of 
security  and  success  has  the  power,  through 


22 


the  operations  of  a -well-based  credit,  to  antici- 
pate time.  In  October,  17U1,  Washington, 
writing  to  La  Luzkkne,  holds  this  langnage: 
“In  my  tour  1 confirmed,  by  observation,  the 
accounts  wliich  we  liad  all  along  received  of 
the  happy  effects  of  tlie  General  Government  | 
upon  our  agriculture,  commerce,  and  industry,  j 
The  same  effects  pervade  the  Middle  and 
Eastern  States,  with  the  addition  of  vast  pro- 
gress in  themost  useful  manufactures.”  Only  I 
two  years  before,  industry,  commerce  and 
credit  had  well  nigh  perished,  but,  und*^r  the 
touch  of  a master  hand,  they  had  already  as- 
sumed the  vigor  of  health  and  the  cheerfulness 
of  hope. 

Hamilton  was  a protectionist,  but  not  an 
extremist ; with  the  finest  speculative  powers 
ever  conferred  upon  any  man  for  the  conduct 
of  public  affairs,  he  was  the  safest,  most  cau- 
tious, and  best  informed  of  practical  states- 
men. His  policy  of  commerce,  navigation, 
agriculture,  currency,  and  manufactures  were 
all  alike  and  equally,  the  expression  and  the 
means  of  actualizing  the  grand  national  pliilo- 
sophy  expressed  in  one  of  the  numbers  of  the 
“Federalist,”  when  he  was  urging  upon  the 
American  people  the  unity  of  empire,  under  a 
Federal  Government;  “Let  the  thirteen 
States,  bound  together  in  a great  indissoluble 
Union,  concur  in  erecting  one  great  Ameeican 
System,  superior  to  the  control  of  trans-Atlan- 
tic force  or  influence,  and  able  to  dictate  the 
connection  between  the  Old  and  New  World.” 

HISTOKY,  EFFECTS  OF  WAE,  PEACE  AND  PAPEE 
MONEY. 

In  1793,  the  wars  of  England  and  her  allies 
with  France,  which  were  to  last,  with  slight 
remissions,  until  1815,  began  to  operate  as 
protection  to  American  manufactures.  For 
twenty-two  years  western  Europe,  and  especi- 
ally England,  then  already  the  work-shop  of 
the  world,  was  engaged  in  the  work  of  con- 
Buming  and  destroying  the  products  of  indus- 
try, and  their  prime  laborers  in  the  business 
of  cutting  each  other’s  throats.  The  resulting 
embarrassments  of  maritime  trade  operated  in 
the  same  way.  The  Bank  of  England  sus- 
pended specie  payments  early  in  1797,  not  to 
resume  them  again  till  1817,  partially,  and 
completely  in  1821.  Prices  of  all  commodi- 
tie.s,  under  these  circumst.ances,  ruled  very 
Jjigh  in  Furo[)e,  with  all  the  benelit  to  Ameii- 
caj)  pj’oduclion  that  eijuivalent  )>roteclive  du- 
ties could  have  remdered.  Neve,rlhel(?ss,  our 
financial  nticessilies  were  ])ressing;  the  cus- 
toms were  ina<le(iua(e,  aiul  Congre.ss,  by  four 
HuccesKiv<!  tariffs,  raised  (he  diiiies  ol'  (ho  tvet 
of  1 790  (o  (juite  an  average  of  Hovtuheen  ])er- 
oe.nt.  (id  vitlonm,  or,  perhaps,  (o  Ivventy,  if 
the  sjieeifie  vyerc;  inebideil  in  llu!  es(iniu(e. 
'J'his  point,  wafl  reach(*(l  by  the  act  of  180  1. 

'l'lie-i(;  rales  wouhl  not.  hav(!  Iieen  snlfudenl 
of  I heiiis(!l  V(‘H,  bill  (he  enibarg(»  of  1807,  (Ik* 
n<m-j til ercoursi’  wilh  Grcal  Ib  ilain  of  1809,  and 
finally  llio  war  of  1812,  gavc^  lull  play  lo  our 
yming  enl (*r|)ri.u!,  and  aeeordiii); ly,  during  llie 
War  of  1812,  manufaci tiring  indusliy  received 
such  an  ttxl  raordinary  inijuilsc,  dial  we  nut 


only  met  the  home  demand,  but  were  able  to 
furnish  some  surplus  for  exportation.  A ('on- 
gressional  report  in  1815  puts  our  cotton  and 
woollen  manufactures  at  more  than  sixty  mil- 
lions per  annum,  with  altove  one  hundred 
thousand  Avorkmen  employed.  Thirty  years 
afterwards,  Secretary  Walker  estimated  the 
products  of  these  two  branches  of  mtinu Pic- 
ture, in  the  United  States,  at  no  more  than 
eighty-nine  millions,  or  less  than  fifty  per  cent, 
increase. 

England,  in  that  thirty  years,  increased  the 
exports  of  her  products  from  forty-two  millions 
of  pounds  sterling  to  one  hundred  and  thirty- 
five  millions,  official  valuation,  or  three  hun- 
dred and  tAventy  per  cent.  As  in  the  case  of 
the  War  of  Indciiendence,  that  of  1812  liad  the 
effect  to  extend  our  manufacturing  industry  by 
excluding  foreign  competition,  tind  (here  was 
a rapid  increase  in  all  values,  as  Avell  of  raw 
materials  as  of  manufactured  goods,  labor, 
and  real  estate;  thus  giving  a Avell-distributed 
prosperity  to  Avorkmen,  land-holders,  and  to 
internal  commerce. 

But  after  the  battle  of  AVaterloo  and  the  gen- 
eral pacification  of  Europe,  England,  France, 
and  Germany  Avent  to  Avork,  and  the  duties  of 
the  tariff  of  1810  proved  to  be  much  more  cal- 
culated to  increase  the  customs  than  to  protect 
our  manufactures.  Our  prosperity  went  down 
under  an  inundation  of  foreign  imports.  The 
total  imports  shot  up  from  12  millions  in  1814 
to  113  millions  in  1815,  and  147  in  1810.  The 
glut  in  our  market  reduced  (hem  to  99  millions 
the  next  year,  but  in  1818  they  rose  again  to 
121  millions — ^a  figure  Avhich  they  never  touched 
afterwards  until  the  year  1884,  the  first  of  tlie 
compromise  reduction  of  duties.  For  although 
there  was  nothing  restrictive  of  trade  in  the 
tariff,  from  1810  to  1824  a ruinous  and  paralyz- 
ing depression  of  our  monetary  affairs  liad 
the  effect  of  checking  imports,  until  the  tariffs 
that  intended  protection  came  in  to  hold  them 
in  due  moderation. 

Thus,  after  the  country  had  a second  time 
enjoyed  during  war  the  benefits  of  peace,  it 
suffered  for  the  second  time  the  usual  evils  of 
war  in  time  of  peace. 

But  to  help  the  foreign  competition  to  break 
doAvn  our  home  industry,  another  cause  Avas 
tit  Avork.  Hi  181 5-1  ()-l  7-18  prices  Avcrc  kept 
up  here,  artificially,  to  the  Avar  standard,  Avhile 
in  Furope  they  Avere  rapidly  falling  to  (he 
rjitcs  of  ])eace.  England  began  at  the  earliest 
moment  to  resume  specie  payments,  and  Ave 
Avent  to  AVOrk  to  suspend  and  jiostpono 
them. 

In  1812  Gongress  began  to  carry  on  the  Avar 
with  Great  Uritain  upon  loans  of  hank  credits 
tind  bank  notes.  In  1813  the  banks  ol  the 
middle  Slates  lent  liberally  to  (he  Government, 
tniil,  Jis  a consetptence,  increased  (heir  issues 
proporl ionately.  'I'hey  mtnlinued  (his  line  ot 
loans  (lirongh  1811,  until  in  AugnsI  (hey  wevo 
oliliged  to  suspend  specie  ptiymenls  ; and  s]tecio 
bore  a preniinni  of  M to  2d  percent.  In  i815, 
the  Government  recteiving  their  ineon  verl  ible 
|)aper  in  jtiiyim'iit  of  public  dues,  (he\'  ex  .ended 
their  issues  still  further. 


23 


In  1816  tlie  Bank  of  England  was  preparing 
to  redeem  its  notes  ; the  other  nations  of  Eu- 
rope were  also  endeavoring  to  replace  their 
paper  currencies  with  specie.  We  were  a debt- 
or-trader with  the  trans- Atlantic  world,  and  a 
heavy  drain  of  our  small  supply  of  specie  com- 
menced, specie  standing  in  Philadelphia  at  IG 
to  17  per  cent,  premium.  Some  reduction  of 
the  paper  circulation  occurred  towards  the 
close  Of  this  year,  and  in  1817  there  was  a 
partial  resumption  of  specie  payments  ; but  at 
the  close  of  the  year  there  was  as  much  paper 
in  circulation  as  at  the  beginning.  In  the 
spring  of  1818  the  local  bank  mania  reached 
its  height.  More  than  two  hundred  banks 
were  projected  in  various  parts  of  the  Union. 
In  the  middle  of  the  year  1819  the  banks  com- 
menced contracting  and  breaking ; property 
depreciated  immensely,  and  multitudes  of  in- 
dividuals went  into  insolvency.  Towards  the 
close  of  the  year  1820  the  banks  settled  down 
into  what  was  called  a “state  of  regularity,” 
which  meant  lying  on  their  oars,  by  the  few 
that  had  not  swamped.  In  1815  their  circula- 
tion had  reached  a hundred  millions,  we  know 
not  how  much  more  in  1818,  but  now  it  had 
gone  down  to  forty-five  millions ; and  a mer- 
chant of  the  interior  was  obliged  to  carry  what 
specie  he  could  raise  to  the  sea-ports,  because 
he  could  not  get  hold  of  an  Eastern  specie- 
paying  bank-note.  The  business  history  of 
1820-21  may  be  remembered,  but  it  would  be 
hard  to  put  it  on  paper.  A State  of  sutFering 
prevailed  which  beggars  all  description ; and 
an  anti-bank  sentiment  spread  throughout  the 
laud  which  has  distracted  the  reasonings  of 
politicians  to  such  an  extent,  that  they  have 
never  been  able  to  trace  a revulsion  of  our 
monetary  and  business  affairs  to  any  other 
cause  from  that  day  to  this. 

The  fact  is  overlooked  that  at  the  beginning 
of  the  “ late  war”  there  was  not  more  than 
fifteen  millions  of  specie  in  all  the  banks,  and 
perhaps  half  that  amount  in  general  circula- 
tion ; that  the  embargo  of  1807,  which  pre- 
vented the  export  of  our  produce,  had  com- 
pelled the  export  of  specie  instead ; that  in 
1808  the  invasion  of  Spain  by  NapolUon  threw 
her  and  her  specie  yielding  colonies  into  the 
arms  of  Great  Britian,  taking  their  treasure 
and  their  traffic  in  the  same  direction ; and 
that  about  this  time  the  South  American  mint, 
which  had  been  yielding  fifty  millions,  de- 
clined to  about  twenty-seven  millions  a year. 

In  this  state  of  things  the  war  of  1812  burst 
upon  the  country.  The  treasury  was  empty  ; 
the  specie  in  the  country  amounted  to  two  or 
three  dollars  a head  for  the  whole  population  ; 
and  the  Government,  in  its  desperation,  chose 
to  pay  out  bank  paper  to  meet  the  war  ex- 
penses ; perhaps  in  failure  of  any  better  way 
of  using  its  own  credit,  but  certainly  with  the 
direct  effect  of  inducing  issues  which  put  hosts 
of  corporations  into  the  position  of  redeeming 
a debt  on  demand,  which  had  been  contracted 
in  behalf  of  the  great  debtor  behind  whose 
bonds  had  twenty  years  to  run.  It  was  the 
Government  that  broke  the  people  that  time, 
and  then  left  them  in  despair  to  break  them- 


selves still  worse,  in  the  tain  hope  of  retriev- 
ing their  affairs,  by  increasing  their  debts 
which,  however,  would  not  be  postponed 
through  the  aid  of  bank  credits  long  enough 
to  enable  the  people  to  meet  them. 

The  receipt  of  inconvertible  paper  for  public 
dues  was  prohibited  after  the  20th  February, 
1817.  A large  part  of  that  paper  was  as  much 
a Government  promise  to  pay  as  if  it  had  been 
in  the  form  of  treasury  notes.  It  had  been 
received  in  sheets  and  quires  from  the  banks 
by  the  treasury  and  paid  out  to  the  public  for 
good.  New  England,  not  liking  the  war,  her 
banks  lent  sparingly,  most  of  them  northing  at 
all,  to  the  Government ; they  escaped  the  sus- 
pension of  1814;  in  1818  the  ports  of  Boston 
and  Salem  alone  exported  five  millions  of 
specie  within  twelve  months.  They  had  been 
all  the  while  draining  the  other  States,  who 
were  playing  pay-masters  for  the  treasury,  and 
they  had  the  cash  to  spare  when  nobody  else 
had  any  for  use.  The  banks  went  still  wilder 
after  the  Government  dropped  them,  just  as  a 
tipsy  gentleman  will  go  fi-nm  the  dining  table 
of  his  friends  to  a tavern  to-  finish  the  frolic. 
AVhen  his  headache  is  to  be  accounted  for  the 
next  morning,  the  dinner  party  ought  not  te 
be  overlooked.  He  ought  not  to  have  got 
drunk,  to  be  sure,  but  he  was  not  sober  when 
he  did  it,  and  his  honorable  host  has  that 
much  to  account  for.  The  truth  is,  tlnit  the 
credit  of  the  country  was  dead-broke  at  the 
close  of  the  war,  and  the  only  question  was, 
how  must  it  fall  to  pieces.  Eighty-millions 
of  the  national  debt  w'as  immediately  due  and 
payable  by  the  banks  and  the  people,  and  they 
had  no  money  to  pay  it  with.  So  they  issued 
new  notes  for  the  old  ones,  until  nobody  would 
touch  them,  and  then  the  whole  concern  Avound 
up  in  bankruptcy. 

On  looking  over  the  tables  of  the  tariff  of 
1816,  30  percent,  rates  occur  so  frequently  and 
the  schedules  at  25  and  20  respectively,  are 
so  well  advanced  upon  the  previous  tariffs,  a7id 
compare  so  nearly  Avith  the  duties  of  1824, 
that  there  is  no  accounting  for  its  entire  failure 
to  guard  our  home  industry  moderately  Avell, 
except  by  looking  to  the  circumstances  of  that 
great  crisis  in  the  affairs  of  the  trans-Atlantic 
world.  Bonapaute  was  now  safe  at  St.  He- 
lena, and  the  millions  of  men  Avhom  he  had  so 
long  kept  otherwise  employed,  and  the  millions 
of  capital  occupied  in  the  maintenance  of 
the  troops,  were  all  suddenly  turned  to  pro- 
duction, glutting  the  markets  of  Europe  so 
that  the  prices  of  their  products  in  America 
were  a mere  matter  of  relief,  not  of  profit,  to 
the  enterprise  that  produced  them.  The  ad 
valorems  of  that  bill,  of  course,  went  down 
with  the  first  cost  price  on  our  Avharves,  and 
even  the  specific  duties  had  but  a partially 
protective  effect,  though  rolled,  bolt,  and  bar 
iron  was  charged  thirty  dollars  per  ton.  The 
greatly  depreciated  paper  currency,  and  the 
extreme  scarcity  of  coin,  put  up  home  prices 
extravagantly,  and  so  the  tariff  of  1816  disap- 
pointed the  country.  But  that  the  intention 
was  sound  and  right  is  apparent  enough.  All 
the  schedules  and  rates  would  have  been  mod- 


24 


erafely  protective,  perhaps  sufficiently  so,  if 
things  had  been  more  nearly  equal  in  Europe 
and  America — the  respective  tlieatrcs  of  the 
competition  for  our  own  market. 

HISTORY — THE  COTTON  STATES  SUPPORT  PRO- 
TECTION WHILE  “IT  pays”  their  DERT, 

Mr.  Calhoun  voted  and  spoke  for  the  tariff 
of  1810.  Jlis  understanding  of  its  spirit  and 
provisions  is  indicated  by  a passage  between 
him  and  Mr.  Clay  in  the  Senate  chamber  in 
18o2.  “When  you  and  I,  sir,”  said  Mr  Clay, 
“ contended  side  by  side  for  the  tariff  of  1810, 
and  you,  with  at  least  equal  zeal,  and  certainly 
greater  ability  than  I,  the  constitutionality  of 
protection  was  not  doubted.”  Mr  Calhoun 
replied;  “The  constitutionality  was  not  then 
debated.”  “ No,  sir,”  said  Clay,  “ it  was  not 
then  debatable — that  is  a quite  modern  dis- 
covery.” 

The  debt  of  the  two  wars  and  the  current 
expenses  of  the  Government  were  then  to  be 
provided  for  ; and  it  is  almost  a shame  to  think 
that,  under  tliat  necessity,  the  cotton  States 
would  favor  a policy  by  which  they  should  es- 
cape half  their  share  of  the  patriotic  burden, 
and  so  soon  as  they  were  afterwards  wholly 
relieved  of  the  incubus,  turn  and  strike 
down  the  industries  that  had  been  built  upon 
their  fairly  implied  faith.  Protection  in  South 
Carolina  turned  to  nullification,  so  soon  as  the 
special  ends  of  South  Carolina  were  served. 
She  could  quarrel  with  us  on  a matter  of  trivial 
percentages,  so  soon  as  she  could  not  see  the 
proceeds  passing  as  a gift  to  her  account. 

REVULSIONS,  THEIR  CAUSE  AND  CURE. 

Dr.  Hugh  Williamson,  describing  the  dis- 
tresses and  disorders  of  the  year  1780,  says: 
“The  scarcity  of  money  is  so  great,  and  the 
difficulty  of  paying  debts  has  been  so  common, 
that  riots  and  combinations  have  been  formed 
in  many  places,  and  the  operations  of  civil 
government  have  been  suspended.”  Marshall, 
in  his  “Life  of  Washington,”  of  this  crisis 
generally,  and  particularly  of  the  causes  which 
led  to  Shay’s  llebellion,  says:  “On  opening 
their  ports,  an  immense  quantity  of  foreign 
merchandise  was  introduced  into  the  country, 
and  tliey  were  tempt c<l  by  the  sudden  cheai)- 
ness  of  imported  goods,  and  by  their  own 
wants,  to  piu’chasc  beyond  their  capacity  for 
payment.”  The  conseciucnces,  so  soon  as  they 
liad  tinu!  to  work  themselves  out,  he  thus  de- 
scribes: “ 'J'he  bomls  of  men,  whose  compe- 
tency to  pay  their  debts  was  umpiestionable, 
conhl  not  be  negotiated  but  at  a discount  of  <‘50, 
}()  and  -^)0  pel-  centum;  real  properly  was 
^caicely  vendible;  and  sales  of  any  article  for 
ready  moiuiy  could  b(^  made  only  at  a ruinous 
loss.”  IIamsey’h  History  of  South  Carolina, 
and  I’.Ei.K NA r’s  History  of  New  Hampshire, 
how  that  the  distress  was  as  general  as  in- 
tense, and  that  it  displayed  itsedf  in  “a  dispo- 
sition every wherc^  to  resist  tlui  laws.” 

d'his  piclnrir  is  touche<l  with  even  deeper 
‘•hading  : than  that,  of  t he  corresponding  crisis 
tiuit  Ibllowc'l  the  war  of  1KI2,  although  the 
< IHI'j  and  1820  wont  as  near  touching 


the  lowest  point  of  depression  as  one  can  well 
imagine. 

The  things  to  be  noticed  in  the  affairs  of  the 
period  from  178.”  to  1780  are,  first,  that  there 
were  then  but  t hree  banks  in  the  United  States 
— the  Bank  of  North  America,  charterisl  in 
1781,  and  the  Bank  of  Massachusetts  and  the 
Bank  of  New  York,  both  charter-ed  in  1784; 
neither  of  them  having  more  than  $100,000  of 
capital.  Their  paper  was  not  suspected  of  in- 
tlating  prices,  which  were  indeed  at  the  very 
lowest  ebb.  And,  second,  that  absolute  free- 
trade  prevailed  from  the  peace  of  Paris  till 
July,  1780.  The  rates  of  duty  in  Pennsylvania 
were  only  two  and  a half  per  cent.,  and  even 
this  mere  nothing  was  made  totally  nugatory. 
New  Jersey  established  a free  port  at  Burling- 
ton, where  goods  intended  for  Philadelphia 
were  entered  and  clandestinely  carried  over 
the  Delaware.  The  same  thing  was  done  in 
other  States,  so  that  trade  had  at  that  time  a 
run  of  six  years  of  entire  freedom.  It  did  its 
work  in  half  the  time.  No  sooner  were  our 
ports  opened  than  almost  every  nation  in  Eu- 
rope made  large  shipments  to  the  new  El  Do- 
rado. The  wharves  were  crowded ; house  rent, 
for  storage  purposes,  rose  to  double  and  treble 
prices.  The  importers  made  great  profits,  and 
tlie  purchasers  captivating  bargains,  till  the 
French  crowns  that  had  been  left  by  our  allies 
among  the  people  were  gone,  and  then — im- 
porters and  purchasers  found  themselves  in  the 
situation  already  described.  The  policy  of 
buying  cheap  manufactures  from  abroad,  re- 
gardless of  the  ruined  industry  that  could  have 
produced  them  at  home,  never  had  so  fair  a 
trial,  and,  accordingly,  never  did  quite  so 
quickly  run  into  its  inevitable  catastrophe.  In 
this  case,  besides  going  very  far  in  the  demor- 
alization of  the  people,  it  very  nearly  dissolved 
the  frame  of  the  political  government,  with 
the  loss  of  political  liberty  in  its  train  of  con- 
sequences. 

Five  years  of  similar  experiences,  after  the 
war  of  1812,  resulting  really  from  the  same 
causes,  led  the  nation  to  reflection,  and  helped, 
doubtless  by  the  extravagant  legislation  of 
England  upon  the  subject  of  her  corn  laws,  the 
agricultural  INIiddle,  Northern  and  Western 
States,  joined  with  the  manufacturers  as  in  a 
common  object,  with  some  difl’erence  of  impulse, 
to  impose  higher  duties  on  imports,  and  the 
tariff  of  1 824  was  passed.  There  was,  however, 
a little  too  much  of  the  spirit  of  countervailing 
duties  ill  this  act,  and  something  too  little  of 
the  sound  expediency  which  should  have  gov- 
erned it. 

15ut  the  subject  had  undergone  a pretty 
thorough  discussion.  A Democratic  Congress 
in  180'.)  had  ordered  the  republication  of  IIam- 
II, ton’s  rejiort  of  171)1  on  manuraetures,  and 
the  retied ing  jniblic  had  formed  the  opinion 
that  it.  was  better  entitled  to  be  called  “An  In- 
(iniry  into  the  Nature  and  Cause  of  the  Wealth 
of  Nations,”  than  Adam  Smith’s  treatise,  in 
t wo  volumes,  with  that  title.  It  was  felt  that 
no  country  had  been  so  misjudged  as  to  her 
economical  policy  and  iminifest  dest  iny  as  North 
America,  both  by  mere  theorists  and  tliat  sort 


25 


of  practical  men  who  do  all  their  thinking 
without  any  theorizing.  Adam  Smith  and  J. 
B.  Say  had  announced  that  the  United  States 
were  to  be  devoted  to  agriculture,  like  Poland. 
But  the  country  had  been  studying,  through 
its  suflFerings,  the  theory  of  free-trade,  and  the 
model  Republic  rapidly  fell  from  its  exemplary 
position  in  the  regards  of  the  theorists  of  Eu- 
rope. They  were  disgusted  that,  while  Eng- 
land, which  had  already  obtained  all  that  pro- 
tgction  could  possibly  do  for  her,  was  rapidly 
verging  toward  their  philanthropic  system, 
this  new  people  were  retrograding  to  the  sys- 
tem which  their  science  had  so  clearly  refuted. 

To  the  argument  founded  upon  the  great 
quantity  of  fertile  lands  yet  uncultivated,  it 
was  replied,  that  the  vastness  of  the  national 
domain  was  no  reason  why  particular  parts  of 
it  should  not  be  governed  by  the  policy  wisest 
and  best  for  them  ; that  there  was  nothing  in 
the  unpeopled  solitudes  of  the  West  which 
could  complain  if  the  Atlantic  States  should 
take  judicious  care  of  their  own  welfare  ; and 
that  there  could  be  no  reason  why  the  coast 
States  must  postpone  the  diversification  of  their 
labor  and  the  development  of  their  resources, 
till  the  whole  continent  should  have  a redund- 
ancy of  labor.  They  were  unwilling,  moreover, 
to  bear  the  drain  of  population  and  material 
and  intellectual  power,  which  an  exclusively 
agricultural  system  would  compel,  with  the 
additional  evil  of  converting  all  that  surplus 
into  competitors  which  they  required  for  con- 
sumers. They  would  not  interfere  with  the 
interests  of  the  West,  but  they  would  not  be 
checked  in  their  own  proper  growth ; more- 
over, they  held  that  a young  agriculture  above 
all  things  needs  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  maturer  industries,  under  the  same  political 
government,  and  protected  from  all  restrictions 
and  embarrassments.  England  would  not 
charge  herself  with  the  opening  of  canals  and 
railroads  between  the  east  and  west  sides  of 
the  Alleghenies,  but  Pennsylvania  and  New 
York  would  be  impelled  to  it  by  every  consid- 
eration of  their  interest  in  a reciprocal  system 
of  exchanges. 

The  argument,  that  where  wages  are  high 
for  agricultural  labor,  manufactures  cannot  be 
sustained,  was  met  by  a denial  of  the  assumed 
truth  of  facts  in  the  proposition ; by  their  tri- 
viality, if  they  were  true ; and  further,  that, 
so  far  as  they  could  be  supposed  to  have  any 
bearing  upon  the  point,  they  applied  only  to 
articles  of  small  bulk  and  weight,  which  are 
chiefly  the  product  of  hand  labor,  but  had  no 
application  whatever  to  those,  the  price  of 
which  is  but  little  influenced  by  the  rate  of 
wages,  being  mainly  the  product  of  machinery, 
and  are  still  further  helped  by  a very  small 
cost  of  transportation,  the  cheapness  of  the 
raw  material  and  of  food,  and  the  abundance 
and  cheapness  of  fuel  and  water-power ; and 
finally,  by  moderate  taxes  and  energetic  and 
skillful  labor. 

They  had  something  to  claim,  too,  for  them- 
selves, and  to  urge  upon  the  consideration  of 
their  opponents,  in  the  fact  that  populous,  cul- 
tivated, and  prosperous  States  were  first  formed 


on  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  ; that  there  was 
the  cradle  of  our  maritime  fisheries,  our  coast- 
ing trade,  and  of  our  navy;  that  there  inde- 
pendence was  achieved  and  the  confederation 
founded ; that  through  them  our  national  com- 
merce was  carried  on,  and  the  European  sur- 
plus of  population,  and  material  and  moral  re- 
sources were  derived ; and  that  upon  them  the 
welfare  of  the  whole  nation,  witli  its  national 
independence,  mainly  depended.  They  justly 
argued  that  no  agricultural  people  could  have 
or  maintain  a navy ; its  commerce  must  be  in 
the  hands  of  its  wealthy  customers,  and  its 
coasts  defenceless ; that  nothing  can  counter- 
vail the  selfish  policy  of  nations  industrially 
dominant,  but  such  an  approach  to  self-supply 
of  the  commodities  of  necessary  consumption 
as  would  hold  them  in  wholesome  check ; and, 
especially,  that  the  agricultural  surplus  of  a 
people  must  submit  to  the  regulations  of  a for- 
eign consumer  if  it  cannot  choose  but  depend 
upon  a single  market.  In  a word,  that  a na- 
tion which  has  but  one  market  to  sell  and  buy 
in,  with  the  power  in  the  customer  to  fix  the 
prices  of  both,  is  exactly  in  the  business  condi- 
tion of  a chattel  slave,  whose  master  is  the 
only  man  with  whom  he  may  deal. 

It  was  perceived  and  urged  that  the  agricul- 
ture of  the  coasting  States  must  decline,  unless 
sustained  by  a liberal  home  market.  The  pro- 
ducts of  the  cheaper  and  more  fertile  lands  of 
the  West,  transported  by  canals  and  railways, 
would  undersell  them,  and  a general  and  cer- 
tain and  permanent  impoverishment  would 
quickly  follow,  and  the  whole  country  would 
have  nothing  to  export  but  what  the  least  civ- 
ilized nations  possess  in  abundance — heavy, 
poorly-paying  products,  not  always  wanted, 
and  never  holding  a commanding  position  in 
the  markets  of  manufacturing  nations. 

But  the  existence  of  extensive  manufactures 
in  the  Eastern  States  promised,  with  absolute 
assurance,  such  results  as  the  following : Popu- 
lation, capital,  skill  and  intellectual  force  flow 
in  abundance  from  the  countries  of  Europe ; as 
food  and  raw  materials  come  from  the  West, 
the  demand  for  the  manufactures  of  those 
States  increases ; the  population,  the  number 
and  wealth  of  their  cities  augments  in  propor- 
tion to  the  progress  of  culture  in  the  Western 
regions;  the  increasing  population  promotes 
their  own  agriculture  by  an  enlarged  demand 
for  its  most  varied  and  best-paying  products ; 
an  increased  demand  for  the  yield  of  the  mari- 
time fisheries ; the  coasting  trade  has  the  ben- 
efit of  transporting  their  required  supplies  of 
coal,  timber,  food  and  raw  materials ; their 
manufactures  supply  a multitude  of  articles 
for  export  to  a large  portion  of  the  world, 
serving  directly,  or  through  exchanges  instead 
of  money,  in  the  purchase  of  tropical  commodi- 
ties ; and  all  with  the  beneficent  general  effect 
of  building  up  the  fisheries,  the  general  ship- 
ping interests,  the  navy,  and  with  them,  the 
securities  of  national  independence. 

Such  were  some  of  the  reasons  that  induced 
the  nation  in  1824  and  1828  to  limit  the  import 
of  foreign  manufactured  articles,  and  to  pro- 
tect their  own  manufactures.  The  success  of 


26 


these  alms  of  the  policy  was  absolutely  perfect; 
and,  what  was  most  surprising  to  the  tlieorists 
of  the  Opposition  party  at  home  and  abroad, 
the  working  of  the  measures  adopted  proved 
just  as  favorable  to  the  national  finances  as  if 
that  had  been  the  exclusive  object  of  the  poli- 
cy. The  tariff  men  of  1824  and  1828  did  not 
venture  upon  such  a free  list  as  their  principle 
demanded;  they  perhaps  feared  a failure  of 
revenue.  An  excess  resulting  entirely  from 
that  error,  not  soon  enough  amended,  did  their 
policy  all  the  mischief  that  it  afterwards  en- 
countered. In  1832  tea  and  coffee,  and  a large 
amount,  in  variety  and  value,  of  foreign  neces- 
saries, were  exempted  from  the  burden  of  du- 
ties ; but  the  whole  national  debt  had  been  too 
quickly  reduced,  the  mass  of  individual  and 
general  prosperity  had  been  realized  too  sud- 
denly, and  the  most  fortunate  people  under  the 
sun  were  seized  with  the  belief  that  their  good 
fortune  would  be  soon  entirely  unmanageable 
unless  they  took  early  measures  to  provide 
against  its  overflow.  We  will  see  the  result  of 
the  change  in  our  next. 

NULLIFICATION — CLAY’s  COMFROMISB  TARIFF. 

The  Legislature  of  the  State  of  South  Caro- 
lina, at  its  first  session  after  the  passage  of  the 
tariff  of  1828,  set  on  foot  its  doctrine  of  nulli- 
fication ; but  a new  Administration  was  about 
to  be  inaugurated,  and  actual  resistance  to  the 
collection  of  the  revenue  was  postponed  in  the 
hope  of  a more  peaceable  remedy.  Virginia 
sanctioned  the  South  Carolina  doctrine,  by  a 
vote  of  134  to  G8,  and  Alabama  took  nearly  the 
same  ground.  Georgia  had  previously  taken 
a similar  attitude  to  the  laws  and  authority  of 
the  Federal  Government,  on  her  Indian  ques- 
tion. North  Carolina  gave  a check  to  the 
spirit  of  nullification ; holding  an  equal  aver- 
sion to  the  tariff  with  South  Carolina,  she, 
nevertheless,  declared  herself  opposed  to  all 
violent  opposition  to  it.  The  discussion  of  this 
great  question  culminated  in  1830,  in  the  de- 
bate between  IIayne  and  Webster. 

On  the  14ih  of  July,  1832,  Congress  modi- 
fied the  tariff'  of  1828,  preserving  its  protec- 
tive features  in  all  the  duty-paying  schedules, 
thougli  reducing  the  rates  in  a great  many  in- 
stances, and  putting  into  tlie  free  list  above 
two  hundred  ailicles,  wdiich  previously  paid 
import  duties — tin;  first  free  list  of  any  impor- 
tance in  t he  history  of  our  system  of  commerce. 
It  exeni})ted  from  duty  all  tropical  products, 
and  rmjst  of  t he  conmio<lit  ies  which  the  counti'y 
could  not  [)roduce — an  illustral  ion  of  t he  })resent 
Freneh  niinist(U’’K  slatcmeut  tlmt  protection  is 
the  rout(>.  to  fisu;  tra<le;  or,  we  miglit  say  fi-o;u 
a deeper  and  hroadm-  vi(*w  of  the  subj('Ct,  ))r()- 
teetion  in  in  itself  tlu*  poli(!y  of  free-trade;  foi’ 
its  prinei))leH  demand  tlu*  instant  exomu-ation 
of  all  propfM'ly  foreign  eoinmeree  from  the 
burden  of  imposts,  and  liberate  the  home  in- 
• lu'itry,  wlii'di  in  good  time  praelitailly  tak(‘s 
ofl'all  dill  ies  from  t !iat  portion  cd’ internal  ional 
trade  wliieh  is  improper  and  illegitimate,  by 
di.  pbirinu  it  ^vilh  llie  native  product, 

Ibil  llie  pir-  age  of  the  act  of  1 Hi'2  was  un- 
derstood to  indicate  the  HcUled  policy  of  the 


country,  find  the  controversy  was  quickly 
shifted  from  the  theatre  of  debate  to  the  field 
of  action.  South  Carolina  prepared  to  resist 
the  law,  and  General  Jackson  issued  his  pro- 
clamation of  the  11th  of  December,  1832,  and 
forthwith  ordered  all  the  disposable  military 
force  to  assemble  at  Charleston,  and  a sloop- 
of-war  was  sent  to  that  port  to  protect  the 
Federal  officers,  in  case  of  necessity,  in  the 
execution  of  the  revenue  laws.  »Soutli  Carolina 
now  took  the  ground  of  masterly  inactivity.-^ 
Georgia  reprobated  the  doctrine  of  nullification, 
and  Virginia  entreated  South  Carolina  to  Wait 
until  she  and  the  Federal  Government  could 
be  reconciled.  The  Union  party  had  force 
enough  to  make  the  nullifiers  pause,  and,  on 
the  31st  January,  1833,  at  a meeting  of  the 
leaders  at  Charleston,  it  ivas  resolved  t hat  they 
would  adhere  to  their  principles,  but  as  Con- 
gress was  in  session,  and  there  was  a prospect 
of  accommodation,  all  collision  with  the  Federal 
forces  should  be  avoided,  in  the  hope  of  a sat- 
isfactory adjustment.  On  the  28th  of  Decem- 
ber, 1832,  Mr.  Calhoun  resigned  his  office  of 
Vice  President,  and  went  into  tlie  Senate  in 
place  of  Mr.  IIaynk,  who  had  been  chosen 
Governor  of  the  State.  In  January,  he  repelled, 
in  the  most  earnest  manner,  tlie  imputation  of 
any  hostile  feelings  or  intentions  against  the 
Union,  on  the  pari  of  South  Carolina.  The 
State  authorities,  he  asserted,  had  looked  only 
to  a judicial  decision  of  the  question,  until  the 
concentration  of  the  United  States  troops  at 
Charleston  and  Augusta  had  compelled  them 
to  make  provision  to  defend  themselves;  and, 
straightway,  offered  and  supported  a series  of 
nullification  resolutions ! llelief  came  from 
another  quarter.  Mr.  Clay,  on  the  12th  of 
February,  offered  his  Celebrated  compromise 
bill,  for  the  “permanent  adjustment  of  the 
tariff.”  It  provided  that,  where  the  duties 
exceeded  twenty  per  cent.,  there  should  be 
one-tenth  of  the  excess  deducted  after  Decem- 
ber 31,  1833,  and  one-tenth  each  alternate 
year  until  the  31st  December,  1841,  when  one- 
half  of  the  residue  was  to  be  deducted,  and 
after  the  30th  of  June,  1842,  the  duties  on  all 
goods  -wero  to  be  reduced  to  twenty  per  cent, 
on  a home  valuation,  and  to  be  paid  in  cash. 
Mr.  Calhoun  expressed  his  approbation  of  the 
bill.  The  signature  of  the  President  was  given 
to  it  on  the  2d  March,  1833. 

THE  MISCHIEFS  ALL  TRACED  TO  EXCESS  OF 
IMPORTS. 

The  history  of  the  operation  of  this  compro- 
mise act  will  be  found  in  the  following  facts; 
Under  the  tariff'  of  1828  the  higlicst  amount  of 
foreign  goods  imported  fin’  consnnqition  was 
83A  millions.  In  the  year  of  the  first  reduction, 
183  1,  they  w'cre  87  millions;  in  i83fi,  122 
millions;  in  183(1,  luff  millions — an  .iverago  of 
122  millions  a year  for  these  flirt-e  years, 
against  an  average  of  70  millions  a year  for 
the  live  years  of  the  taritf  of  1828.  At  the 
end  of  (he  year  183(1  (here  was  a surplus  in 
(lu^  Treasury  of  4(1.1  millions,  but.  this  did  not 
come  from  the  customs  of  this  ('xces.-^ive  im- 
port aliotu  Forty-four  and  a half  millions  of 


27 


this  gum  came  from  the  ^ales  of  the  public 
lands.  They  never  before  yielded  more  than 
three  millions  in  any  one  year.  Now  they 
were  afiording  first  in  1834  nearly  5 millions ; 
in  1836  nearly  15  millions;  and  in  1837  within 
a fraction  of  25  millions.  The  revenue  from 
the  customs  for  these  three  years  was  less  than 
it  had  been  any  year  since  1825. 

The  banking  history  of  these  three  years  is 
this:  At  the  beginning  of  the  yeav  1834, 
(the  date  of  the  first  reduction  of  the  tariff 
duties,)  there  were  in  circulation  in  the  United 
States  ninety-five  millions  of  bank  notes ; the 
loans  and  discounts  of  the  banks  amounted  to 
three  hundred  and  twenty-four  millions.  At 
the  close  of  the  year  1836  the  bank  circulation 
had  swollen  to  one  hundred  and  forty-nine 
millions ; and  the  loans  and  discounts  to  above 
five  hundred  millions — an  increase  in  each  of 
these  particulars  of  above  fifty  per  cent,  in 
three  years. 

In  May,  1837,  the  banks  suspended  specie 
payment  universally.  In  September,  the  Trea- 
sury having  deposited  but  three  instalments 
of  its  surplus  of  forty-five  millions  with  the 
States,  amounting  to  twenty-eight  millions, 
suspended  the  fourth  instalment,  and  was 
forced  to  issue  ten  millions  of  treasury  notes 
to  carry  on  the  operations  of  the  Government. 
The  public  lands  still  yielded  for  this  year 
(1837)  nearly  seven  millions,  but  the  customs 
fell  to  eleven  millions,  or  twelve  millions  be- 
low those  of  the  previous  year,  and  quite  thir- 
teen below  the  average  of  the  tariff'  of  1828. 
The  import"'  for  consumption  stood  at  one 
hundred  and  fourteen  millions,  or  about  fifty 
above  the  safe  figure,  for  the  second  reduction 
of  the  compromise  tariff  was  now  in  operation. 
What  do  these  facts  mean  ? 

This  is  the  order  of  the  facts : A sudden  in- 
crease of  imports,  amounting  to  seventy-five 
per  cent.;  a sudden  increase  in  the  bank  cir- 
culation and  discounts,  amounting  to  above 
fifty  per  cent.;  a sudden  increase  of  the  sales 
of  public  lands,  equal  to  five  hundred  per  cent., 
or  as  forty-five  millions  to  nine. 

These  facts  mean  this,  and  nothing  else: 
An  increase  of  the  imports  called  for  the  in- 
crease of  bank  issues  and  credits,  and  the 
labor  and  capital  previously  employed  in  manu- 
factures in  the  Eastern  States,  crowded  out  by 
the  influx  of  foreign  goods,  were  driven  to 
the  West  to  seek  investment  and  support. 

The  whole  history  of  the  United  States, 
without  an  exceptional  instance,  shows  that, 
whenever  the  Treasury  is  gorged  by  receipts 
from  customs  and  the  proceeds  of  the  public 
lands,  a monetary  crisis  is  in  full  pressure 
upon  the  counti*y,  and  that  a general  bank- 
ruptcy of  Government,  banks,  and  people  in- 
evitably follows.  No  excessive  bank  issues 
and  credits  ever  once  occurred,  or  could  oc- 
cur, under  a protective  tariff.  No  overdealing 
in  anything  except  foreign  commodities  can 
greatly,  or  even  considerably, shake  the  finances 
of  the  nation  and  the  people,  because  no  other 
sort  of  speculation  or  overtrading  throws  out 
of  employment  the  productive  industry  and 
capital  of  the  country. 


We  commend  this  proposition  to  the  con- 
sideration of  those  who  are  accustomed  to 
blame  our  revulsions  upon  an  extravagant  cre- 
dit inflation,  admitting  that  they  know  nothing 
of  the  primary  cause,  by  stating  that  these  re- 
vulsions are  periodical,  inevitable,  and  inex- 
plicable. The  proposition  is  worth  the  exami- 
nation of  those  who  really  have  no  theory  that 
looks  for  causes,  or  will  hold  together,  or  cover 
the  facts  of  the  case. 

EXCESSES  AND  DEFICIENCIES  OF  PRICES  AND  OP 
REVENUE,  UNDER  “REVENUE”  TARIFFS. 

The  successive  reductions  of  duty  upon  for- 
eign imports,  under  the  Compromise  act  of 
1833,  reached  their  level  20  per  cent,  rates  on 
the  30th  June,  1842.  The  customs  under  it 
sunk  in  1837  to  eleven  millions,  derived  from 
one  hundred  and  thirteen  millions  of  imports  for 
consumption,  and  rose  again  in  1839  to  twenty- 
three  millions  of  revenue,  from  one  hundred 
and  forty-six  millions  of  imports.  In  1841, 
one  hundred  and  fifteen  millions  of  imports 
yielded  fourteen  and  a half  millions  of  revenue. 
The  customs  under  the  tariff  of  1824  varied  in 
four  years  from  twenty  millions  to  twenty-three 
millions  ; under  that  of  1828  from  twenty-two 
and  a half  millions  in  1829,  to  twenty-nine 
millions  in  1833.  The  consumption  per  head 
of  foreign  imports  from  the  year  1824  to  1833 
rose  gradually  and  steadily  from  ^5.05  to 
$6.25.  The  consumption  per  head  in  1834 
was  $7.09;  in  1835,  $8.64;  in  1836,  $10.93, 
and  in  1840  was  down  to  $5.21.  The  loans 
and  treasury  notes  issued  under  the  tariffs  of 
1824  and  1828  were  five  millions  in  1825. — 
Before  they  went  out  of  operation  the  public 
debt  was  provided  for.  Within  four  years 
after  the  Compromise  act  began  to  operate  the 
Treasury  began  to  borrow  money,  running  up 
the  account  of  funded  debt  and  treasury  notes 
outstanding  to  the  sum  of  forty  millions  by  the 
time  it  jxpired. 

The  Operation  of  a tariff  of  duties  below  the 
point  of  protection,  with  a run  of  nine  years 
for  its  developments,  was,  in  this  instance, 
very  fully  manifested. 

The  first  effect  was  to  nearly  double  our 
foreign  imports  in  three  years — from  eighty- 
three  millions,  in  1833,  to  one  hundred  and 
fifty-nine  millions,  in  1836;  the  consumption 
per  capita  Yx^mg  from  $6.25  to  $16.93.  This 
had  the  effect,  by  reduction  of  prices  and  glut 
of  the  market,  of  crushing  our  manufacturing 
enterprises.  Mills  and  Workshops  were  first 
crippled  and  then  closed  ; the  capital  and  labor 
driven  from  them  sought  employment  in  agri- 
culture ; the  sales  of  public  lands  amounted  to 
more  than  seven  fold  the  average  quantity  of 
any  period  of  ten  years  before  or  ten  years 
afterwards ; and  the  term  wound  up  in  a gen- 
eral bankruptcy  of  the  National  Treasitry  and 
of  the  people,  which  brought  wdth  them  a com- 
plete political  revolution,  and  compelled  a total 
change  in  the  financial  policy  of  the  nation. — 
The  fluctuations  of  the  revenue  under  this 
tariff  are  marked  and  distinguished  by  the  fact 
that  the  income  of  the  Treasury,  from  all 
sources,  never  afterwards  rose  to  within  eight 


28 


millions  of  that  of  1830,  until  the  year  1850- 
61,  and  had  not  fallen  so  low  as  in  the  year 
1841  since  the  year  1821.  Its  fluctuations  in 
five  years  touched  both  extremes  of  the  revenue 
of  the  nation  experienced  in  thirty-four  years 
of  change  ; that  is,  the  revenue  had  not  been 
so  low  for  twenty-five  years  before  1841,  nor 
did  it  rise  so  high  for  fourteen  years  after  1830. 

The  business  of  the  country  felt  these  vicis- 
situdes in  tlie  national  finances,  and  answered 
to  them  like  their  echo.  Within  a period  of 
six  years,  whilst  this  tariff  was  developing  its 
extremes  of  change — from  1830  to  1842 — the 
highest  and  lowest  prices  of  eighteen  years 
were  touched.  Cotton,  flour,  provisions,  to- 
bacco, commodities  of  all  kinds,  labor  and  real 
estate,  went  up  in  price  almost  in  the  exact 
ratio  that  importations  increased,  that  is,  to 
nearly  double  the  amount  of  1833  in  1837 ; and 
in  1842,  the  imports  falling  to  one  half,  the 
property,  labor,  and  products  of  the  country 
stood  at  half  the  market  value  of  five  years 
before.  The  bank  circulation,  by  its  necessary 
connection  with,  and  dependence  upon,  the 
great  disturbing  cause,  went  to  the  enormous 
height  of  149  millions  in  the  year  after  the 
imports  had  reached  their  maximum,  and  fell 
to  58^  millions  the  year  after  they  touched 
their  lowest  point  in  1842. 

Not  an  interest  of  the  country,  on  which  its 
national  and  individual  prosperity  depended, 
but  had,  in  that  brief  period,  undergone  con- 
vulsions unparalleled  since  similar  causes  had 
resulted  in  the  great  business  catastrophe  of 
1819-20. 

Such  is  the  history  of  the  policy  which 
abandoned  the  revenue  of  the  Government,  and 
the  industrial  interests  of  the  people,  to  the 
unrestricted  control  of  foreign  trade.  That 
low-tariff  duties  are  responsible  for  excessive 
foreign  importations  will  scarcely  be  ques- 
tioned. Gut  our  allegation  is,  that  these  aug- 
mented imports  induce  excessive  bank  issues, 
inflation  of  prices,  and  the  gambling  spirit  of 
speculation,  which  has  so  often  disturbed  the 
general  business  of  the  country ; in  a word, 
that  our  frequent  revulsions  flow  from  inordi- 
nate importations.  In  general  support  of -this 
doctrine,  let  us  appeal  to  the  fact  that  these 
cxj)ansions  of  imports,  of  paper  circulation, 
and  of  prices,  never  liave  once  occurred  when 
our  tariffs  were  high  enough  to  foster,  but  al- 
ways when  they  were  so  low  as  to  discourage, 
home  production,  and  to  substitute  foreign 
Cf>tnmoditi(;s  for  <lomestic  products  in  our  mar- 
ket. 'fhe  particular  facts  upon  whicli  this 
opinion  I’csls  s(!em  to  us  conclusive.  Let  them 
be  caiad'ully  examined. 

J'IXJ;i)  RATIO  OF  PAPMR  MONMV  AND  PRICES  TO 
FORIIION  IMPORTS. 

In  the  following  tabular  slafeinent,  derived 
from  tin;  liseal  reports  of  Hcicrelaries  Guthrie 
ami  t'oiiii,  lh(!  )»oinlH  are  presentiMl  as  well  as 
our  space  and  the  shayie  of  our  columns  will 
allow,  'flic  docnmeiits  arc;  open  to  easy  refer- 
ence for  such  closer  and  more  detaihal  exami- 
nation as  our  rmiclers  may  re(|nire.  'I'ho 
amounts  arc  given  in  millions  and  decimal 


fractions  of  millions  of  dollars,  except  in  the 
prices  of  flour,  and  the  consumption  of  irnporte 
2^cT  capita,  which  arc  in  dollars  and  cents: 


Years. 

Imports  for  | 

Consumption. 

1 Consumption  | 

1 per  capita,  j 

Bank 

Circulation. 

Export  price 

of  Elour. 

a 

o 

If 

H 

,u  d 

ll 

1810 

1.30.0 

$15 .30 

70.0 

$ 7..37 

80.3 

1.7 

1821 

48.7 

4.14 

45.0 

4.25 

13.0 

1.2 

1820 

57.6 

5.22 

54.0 

5.25 

28.8 

1.4 

1880 

49.5 

4.39 

01.0 

7.25 

21.9 

2.3 

1888 

88.4 

0.25 

80.0 

5..50 

29.0 

3.9 

1885 

128.0 

8.64 

108.0 

6.00 

19.4 

14.7 

18.30 

159.0 

10.98 

140.0 

7. .50 

23.4 

24.8 

1887 

118.0 

7.58 

149.0 

10.25 

11.1 

6.7 

1842 

88.0 

4.87 

83.7 

0.00 

18.2 

1.3 

1848 

76.0 

4.20 

58.5 

4..50 

9.3 

1.0 

1845 

105.0 

,5.15 

90.0 

4.51 

27.5 

2.0 

1840 

110.0 

5.42 

105.5 

5.18 

20.7 

2.7 

1848 

140.0 

0.25 

128.5 

6.22 

31.7 

3.3 

18.50 

164.0 

7.02 

1.31.0 

5.00 

39.0 

1.8 

18,51 

200.0 

8.02 

155.0 

4.77 

49.0 

2.3 

1854 

270.0 

10.00 

204.0 

7.88 

64.2 

8.ft 

1855 

2.31.0 

8.79 

187.0 

10.10 

53.0 

11.5 

18,57 

388.0 

11.82 

214.7 

6.28 

03.8 

3.8 

1858 

242.0 

8.50 

155.2 

4.73 

41.7 

3.5 

1859 

318.0 

10.46 

193.3 

5.00 

49.5 

1.7 

The  statistical  statements  from  which  this 
table  is  compiled,  support  our  proposition  by 
the  clear  establishment  of  the  following  facts  : 

Taking  groups  of  four  years  each,  under  the 
several  tariffs,  protective  and  unprotective, 
respectively,  we  find  the  relation  of  the  for- 
eign imports  to  the  bank  circulation  to  stand 
thus  : 

Under  the  tariff  of  1828,  for  the  years  1829, 
’30,  ’31,  and  ’32,  the  imports  for  consumption 
amounted  to  262  millions — 65  millions  a year ; 
the  consumption  per  capita  $5.21 ; the  bank 
circulation  61  millions.  Under  the  tariff  of 
1842,  for  the  years  1843,  ’44,  ’45,  and  ’46,  the 
imports  were  388  millions — 97  millions  a year; 
the  consumption  joer  capita  $4.95,  and  the  bank 
circulation  at  105^  millions. 

A CONTRAST  WITH  A LESSON  IN  IT. 

Now  let  US  contrast  these  with  the  results  of 
the  unprotective  tariffs : For  the  years  1815, 
’16,  ’17,  and  ’18,  the  imports  were  419  mil- 
lions, or  105  millions  a year;  the  consumption 
per  capita  $12 ; and  the  bank  circulation 
seventy  millions  in  1816,  and  probably  ninety 
millions  in  1818.  Tlie  population  in  1818 
being  under  nine  millions;  in  1846,  above 
twenty  millions. 

Under  the  Compromise  tariff,  for  the  years 
1834,  ’35,  ’36,  and  ’37,  the  imports  were  482 
millions,  or  120  millions  a year;  the  consump- 
tion capita  $8.55,  and  the  bank  circulation 
149  millions. 

Under  the  tariff  of  1846,  for  the  years  1848, 
’49,  ’50,  and  ’51,  the  imports  were  636  mil- 
lions or  159  millions  a year  ; the  consumption 
per  capita,  $6.85,  and  the  bank  circulation  155 
millions. 

for  the  years  1852,  ’53,  ’54,  and  ’55,  the 
imjmrts  were  953  millions,  or  238  millions  a 
year;  flio  consumption  per  capita  $9.20,  and 
the  bank  circulation  at  204  millions. 

For  the  years  1856,  ’57,  ’58,  and  ’59,  the 
im])orts  were  1,188  millions,  or  297  millions  a 


29 


year;  the  consuirlption  per  capita  at  $10,42, 
and  the  hank  circ|ilation  up  to  214  millions. 

Here  in  these  groups  of  years  we  have  a 
constant  increase 'of  circulation  accompanying 
and  corresponding  to  the  increase  of  imports; 
not  in  an  exact  mathematical  ratio,  for  other 
causes  modify  the  results,  but  in  such  settled 
connection  and  dependency,  that  the  doctrine 
we  assert  is  clearly  sustained,  A detailed 
gtatement  for  each  successive  year  of  our  com- 
mercial history  affords  even  a closer  and  more 
satisfactory  proof  of  the  proposition,  as  an  ex- 
amination of  the  table  given  above  very  fairly 
intimates.  It  must  be  recollected  that  the  fis- 
cal year,  and  the  calendar  year  for  which  the 
bank  reports  are  given,  do  not  correspond ; 
the  one  ending  on  the  30th  June,  and  the  other 
on  the  31st  December.  Besides,  the  imports 
do  not  always  display  their  effects  upon  the 
bank  credits  issued  to  meet  them,  and  cover 
the  expense  of  freight  duty  and  payments  by 
the  importers,  and  the  loans  made  to  first  and 
second-hand  jobbers  in  the  interior  of  the 
country,  until  the  fiscal  year  following  their 
arrival  upon  our  wharves.  Taking  these 
things  into  consideration,  our  case  is  well 
made  out, 

CAUSES  OF  OUR  REVULSIONS  REDUCED  TO  RULE 
AND  MEASURE. 

We  have  carefully  compiled  and  collated  the 
facts  and  figures  of  our  commercial  and  bank 
history  for  the  whole  period  stretching  from 
the  year  1815  to  1859,  inclusive.  We  cannot 
give  the  tabular  statement  in  the  present 
crowded  state  of  our  columns ; and  we  even 
prefer  that  the  students  of  the  subject  should 
go  through  the  satisfying  process  of  calculating 
them  for  themselves.  Our  inferences  from  the 
facts  as  they  stand  before  us  are — that  when 
the  consumption  of  foreign  imports  per  capita 
are  less  than  six  dollars,  the  finances  of  the 
nation  and  the  business  of  the  people  are  safe 
and  prosperous.  When  our  consumption  of 
imports,  per  capita,  is  at  eight  dollars,  the 
Treasury  is  beginning  to  overflow,  and  a busi- 
ness pressure  is  severely  felt  in  the  community. 

And  that,  when  the  imports  amount  to  ten 
and  eleven  dollars  per  capita,  a revulsion  im- 
mediately ensues,  and  the  Treasury  and  the 
people  go  into  general  insolvency. 

The  connection  between  the  imports  and  the 
bank  circulation  stands  thus ; 

tn  1818,  the  imports  per  capita  were  $11.37, 
bank  circulation  was  $9  per  capita.  The 
. n of  1819-20  followed. 

In  1836,  the  imports  were  $10.93 per  capita, 
the  bank  circulation  was  $9.09.  The  crash  of 
1839  followed. 

In  1851,  the  imports  were  at  $8.02;  the 
bank  circulation  was  $6.81.  Both  these  items 
steadily  increased  till  1854,  and  a pressure  cor- 
responding accompanied. 

In  1857,  the  imports  rose  to  $11.82  per  cap- 
ita, and  the  bank  circulation  to  nearly  $8.  The 
revulsion  of  September,  1857,  followed. 

Now  look  at  the  opposite  side  of  the  picture. 
From  1821  to  1829  we  have  no  reports  of  the 
bank  circulation.  1830  gives  us  imports  for 


consumption  per  capita,  $4.39,  and  a bank  cir- 
culation of  $4.76.  The  next  year  for  which 
we  have  bank  reports  is  1833.  The  imports 
per  capita  were  then  $6.25,  and  the  circulation 
$5.67  per  capita.  This  report  embraces  the 
whole  calendar  year ; the  Compromise  act  was 
passed  in  May,  and  the  mischief  was  brewing 
that  exploded  in  the  four  years  next  following. 

The  imports  per  capita  for  the  years  1844-5, 
and  ’6,  rose  from  $5.03  to  $5.42,  and  the  bank 
circulation  from  $3.90  to  $5.20  per  capita. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  the  last 
forty-five  years  that  disturbs  these  data,  or  af- 
fects the  conclusions  which  we  draw  from  them ; 
and  we  must  be  allowed  here  to  repeat  our 
assertion  that  foreign  importations,unrestrained 
by  duties  adequately  protective  of  our  domestic 
industry,  has  been  at  the  bottom  of  all  the  re- 
vulsions which  we  have  suffered ; that  such 
excessive  importations  were  the  causes,  in  all 
the  instances,  of  a mischievous  inflation  of 
our  paper  currency;  that  they  have  been,  in 
like  manner,  the  cause  of  the  wild  spirit  of 
business  speculation  which  has  so  frequently 
visited  us ; that  these  periodical  overflows  of 
foreign  merchandise  in  our  market  have  pro- 
duced the  Treasury  plethoras,  and,  by  pros- 
trating our  home  industry,  have  always  occa- 
sioned the  never-failing  revulsions  in  the  reve- 
nue of  the  nation  and  the  business  of  the  peo- 
ple ; and  last,  not  least,  the  drain  of  our  gold 
which  has  run  up  to  an  amount  so  enormous 
during  every  period  of  excessive  importation 
to  meet  the  balance  of  trade  against  us,  is,  and 
always  must  be,  one  of  the  fatal  consequences 
of  an  unregulated  foreign  trade,  and  an  unpro- 
tected home  industry. 

THE  MISCHIEFS  TO  COME. 

Now  let  US  apply  the  facts  of  our  past  expe- 
rience, and  the  principles  which  they  teach 
to  our  present  financial  predicament.  Mr. 
Cobb’s  last  financial  report  estimates  the  re- 
ceipts from  customs  for  the  current  year — from 
July,  1860,  to  July,  1861 — at  sixty  millions  of 
dollars.  What  amount  of  imports,  and  what 
rate  of  consumption,  per  capita,  will  this 
amount  of  revenue  from  duties  under  the 
tariff  of  1857  require? 

The  imports  for  consumption  for  the  year 
1859  were  three  hundred  and  eighteen  millions 
of  dollars  ; the  consumption  per  capita  was 
$10.46.  At  the  same  rates  of  duty,  and  a cor- 
responding amount  of  free  goods  imported, 
sixty  millions  of  customs  require  an  import  for 
this  year  of  three  hundred  and  ninety  millions, 
and  a consumption  per  capita  up  to  $12.58. 
This  amount  of  consumption  per  head  of  the 
population  runs  seventy-six  cents  higher 
than  that  which  immediately  preceded  the 
revulsion  of  1857,  $1.65  higher  than  that  which 
preceded  the  crisis  of  1837,  and  even  $1.21 
higher  than  that  of  1819-20. 

To  meet  the  imports  of  1859  and  the  inte- 
rest on  our  foreign  debt,  we  were  obliged  to 
export  in  that  year  fifty-seven  and  a half  mil- 
lions of  specie  more  than  we  imported.  Our 
total  exports,  exclusive  of  specie,  for  last  year, 
fell  short  of  our  total  imports  for  consumption, 


30 


exclusive  of  specie,  full  forty  millions.  If  the 
imports  for  consumption  for  the  present  year 
must  be  increased  seventy-two  millions  in  or- 
der to  derive  the  required  sixty  millions  of 
customs,  what  will  be  the  deficit  in  our  export 
account  exclusive  of  specie? 

Mr.  Cobb  leaves  us  the  choice  between  a 
heavy  increase  of  our  foreign  debt  to  make  up 
the  required  amount  of  foreign  imports,  and  a 
large  increase  of  our  treasury  debt  if  the  cus- 
toms shall  fail  to  meet  his  estimates. 

Our  calculations,  it  will  be  observed,  have 
been  made  upon  the  estimates  furnished  by 
Mr.  Cobb’s  last  annual  report.  But  while  we 
are  writing,  the  neAvs  from  Washington  informs 
us  that  the  Secretary  has  lately  revised  his  es- 
timates, and  that  the  current  year’s  expendi- 
ture will  require  seventy-tAvo  millions,  instead 
of  sixty,  of  last  December’s  statement.  INIust 
we  have  the  390  millions  of  imports  increased 
to  4G8  millions,  or  78  millions  above  those  of 
last  year,  to  provide  the  necessary  revenues  ? 
Or  is  his  system  of  finance  a mere  policy  of 
receipts  and  disbui’sements,  with  constantly- 
groAving  funded  debt,  and  treasury-note  bor- 
rowings from  the  future,  for  its  principal  items 
of  income? 

MR.  COBB’S  account  CURRENT  WITH  THE 
NATION  POSTED. 

He  has  expended  a surplus  in  the  Treasury 
on  the  1st  July,  1857,  of  seventeen  and  three 
quarter  millions;  a permanent  loan  of  twenty 
millions  ; a temporary  loan  of  twenty  millions 
in  treasury  notes  outstanding,  and  has  reduced 


the  public  debt  subsisting  at^j  the  time  ho  took 
ofiice,  a little  less  than  four  | millions.  Tlicse 
items  leave  his  account  current  with  a balance 
against  him  of  fifty-tliree  millions,  less  wliat* 
ever  sum  there  may  be  unappropriated  in  the 
Treasury — say  four  or  five  millions.  Forty- 
nine  millions  of  a deficit  in  the  account  of  or- 
dinary receipts  and  expenditures  of  the  Gov- 
ernment in  three  years  and  a quarter!  To 
Avhich  it  is  now  perfectly  clear,  twenty  millions 
more  must  be  added  for  the  unexpired  nine 
months  of  his  administration;  for  this  addi- 
tional deficit  is  demonstrable  from  the  data  of 
his  recent  revision  of  his  estimates  for  the  cur- 
rent year. 

A seventy  million  debt  piled  up  in  four  years 
under  the  tariff  of  1857  even  outstrips  that 
which  grew  out  of  the  Compromise  act,  whose 
level  twenty  per  cent,  duties  did  something 
better  for  the  Treasury  than  the  average  nine- 
teen per  cent,  duties  of  1857  with  its  greatly 
enlarged  free  list,  and  the  naturally  increased 
expenditures  of  the  Federal  Government,  to 
say  nothing  of  its  corruptions  and  extrava- 
gance under  the  present  Administration. 

A PREDICTION  WARRANTED  BY  EXPERIENCE. 

Will  the  country  bear  this  another  year? 
Will  Congress  give  another  year’s  lease  to  this 
atrocious  system  ? 

As  certainly  as  1842  reversed  the  policy  of 
1833,  so  surely  will  1800  or  ’61  consign  the 
tariff  of  1857,  Secretary  Cobb,  and  free  trade 
to  political  perdition. 


12 


When  ]Mr.  Cob  den  negoti^ed  with  Napo- 
leon III  the  free  trade  policy  by  which  the 
Emperor  hoped  to  command  English  sympathy 
and  aid  in  any  future  event,  it  was  stipulated 
that  the  treaties  should  be  “denounced'’  six 
or  twelve  months  before  their  termination. 
M.  de  Bort,  the  late  Minister  of  Agriculture 
and  Commerce,  “denounced’’  these  treaties  as 
he  did  merely  in  order  to  terminate  their 
inconvenience  and  loss  at  the  first  possible 
instant,  and  have  them  and  all  like  them  out 
of  the  way  when,  at  the  close  of  this  year, 
new  treaties  more  considerate  of 
terests  are  brought  iorward. 
variously  represented  as  having  this  or  the 
other  political  significance.  Tliereis  no  reason 
for  seeking  any  explanation  beyond  this, 
v^ilvU France  is  ridding  herself 
as  fast  as  possible  of  the  commercial 
troubles  bequeathed  by  the  Empire,  in 
order  to  strengthen  her  own  industries.  The 
English  treaties  have  been  known  to  weigh 
upon  recovery,  and^because  they  did  so, they 
are  being  terminated  as  rapidly  as  possible. 
It  is  hardly  probable  that  an  effect  so  remote 
as  the  one  contemplated  will  concern  the 
business  of  either  country  immediately.  It 
will  give  more  courage  to  French  industry. 
It  certainly  will  not  inspirit  that  of  ’ England, 
which,  suffering  at  home  and  in  the  British 
colonies,  Germany  and  Russia,  and  elsewhere, 
now  finds  the  French  outlet  closing.  But  the 
act  is  one  of  intelligent  self-interest  and  ne- 
cessity, and  it  is  hardly  likely  that  the  change 
of  portfolio  will  mean  a change  of  policy  in 
this  case.  For,  in  fact,  the  decade  is  not  run- 
ning toward  free  trade,  but  leather  against  it. 


rench  in- 
The  act  is 


J 


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vu 


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A“Ti 


mei-lcaa  Goods  In 

Travelled  Eriglislunan  ” write.s  IqftVle 
London  Standard  in  the  lollowinj^  manner 
as  to  the  intrusion  oi  American  goods  on 
the  British  markets: 

How  is  it,  I want  to  know,  that  my  wife’s 
maid,  when  she  went  at  Aix  les  Bains,  at 
Homburg  and  at  Florence  to  buy  calico, 
found  in  shops  where  two  years  ago  nothing 
but  English  goods  were  kept  that  the  calico 
or  cotton  in  stock  was  of  American  manu- 
facture? I am  not  a judge  of  this  article 
mysell,  and  I really  do  not  pretend  to  know 
whether  the  American  goods  are  better  or 
worse  than  those  formerly  supplied  Irom 
the  English  markets.  What  I do  know  is 
that  in  this,  one  of  our  own  staple  manu- 
factures, we  appear  to  have  been  lairiy 
beaten  out  of  the  field  upon  the  Continent, 
and  that  in  each  case  the  shopkeeper,  when 
applied  to  lor  an  explanation,  declared  that 
ho  preferred  American  to  English  materials 
because  he  got  a larger  profit  upon  the 

former  than  upon  the  latter.  ^ ^ 

IIow  is  it,  again,  that  here  in  England,  if 
I want  tools  lor  my  garden  or  my  worksliop 
I am  constantly  being  invited  by  my  iron- 
monger to  try  new  American  “notions,” 
in  the  shape  of  spades  and  hammers  anu 
saws  and  chisels  and  axes?  Some  months 
a^-o  I read  a letter  of  Mr.  Gladstone’s  upon 
a'subiect  on  which  his  authority  can  hardly 
he  contested.  In  it  he  gave  his  opinion 
upon  the  common  American  woodman’s 
axe.  and  described— as  I happen  to  know 
quite  accurately— the  difference  between  it 
and  the  English  article  manulactured  at 
Sheffield.  The  comparison,  I need  hardly 
say  was  all  in  favor  of  the  Yankee  produc- 
tion. Sheffield  is  too  conservative— in  its 
mauulactures,  I mean,  not  in  its  politics 
to  make  an  axe  of  the  best  shape.  fhe 
sharp  American  comes  in  and  wins.  And 
he  does  this  not  merely  in  axes  and  the 
otlier  tools  I have  mentioned,  but  in 
locks,  bolts,  stoves,  lamps  and  a thousand- 
and-one  other  household  requisites  which 
a dozen  years  ago  were  the  peculiar 
productions  of  this  country.  You  have 
only  indeed  to  cast  your  eye  over  your  own 
liousGtiold,  sir,  in  order  to  see  to  bow  large 
an  extent  the  English  manufacturer  has 
been  beaten,  even  in  articles  of  domestic 
use.  Nor  is  it  in  the  hardware  trade  only 
that  we  seem  now  to  be  getting  flooded  with 
American  goods.  American  leather  comes 
here  to  be  made  up  into  shoes;  and  our  fa- 
mous English  carriages  are,  to  a ^rge  ex- 
tent, built  out  of  materials  which  have 
crossed  the  Atlantic,  and  for  which  the 

American  has  been  duly  paid.  Glue,  hair 
and  sand  paper”  are  mentioned  in  a recent 
copy  of  the  Philadelphia  Ledger  as  being 
now  among  articles  largely  exported  to 
this  country ; and  even  slates— shades  oi  the 
Welsh  magnates!— are  now  quarried  in  the 
United  Stales  in  order  to  roof  in  our  Eng- 
lish homes.  , , ,, 

Can  any  of  your  readers  tell  me  how  all 
this  is  brought  about?  And  is  not  the  fact 
alone  suificient  to  account  in  a large  mea- 
sure for  the  present  depression  in  o nr  ma- 
nufacturing industries  ? Ido  not  grumble 
because,  if  I want  tomato  sauce  witli  iny 
cutlets  at  tb^  season,  it  is  probably  made 
out  of  American  iruit;  nor  can  I complain 
because  rny  grocer,  my  butterman,  and 
probably  my  butcher  also,  deals  so  largely 
ill  American  goods  of  all  kinds,  for  I treely 
admit  that  as  a source  of  food  supply  tne 
United  Hiates  is  naturally  infinitely  supe- 
rior to  our  litnited  and  over-populated 
country.  But  what  i want  to  know  is  why, 
in  the  special  mauulactuies  which  were 
once  entirely  ours  and  which  only  a few 
years  ago  belonged  to  us  more  largely  than 
toany  other  country  in  tlie  world,  we  now 
seem  to  be  running  a bad  second  to  the 
United  States.  Why,  sir,  even  the  cigar- 
ettes® hich  I smokeare  made  in  Richmond, 
Va.  ami  the  pen  with  which  I write  comes, 
not’irom  Birmingham,  but  from  an  Ameri- 
can manufactory. 


Philntlclpliia,  T«»esiln,y.  Fet>.  4,  1870.  j 

zi"  ' ; ‘ . ■ . ■ I 


NO  NKW  THING  IN  ENGI.ANO. 

For  a professedly  free  trade  people,  the 
nritish  certainly  jn-esent  sonie  remarkable 
deviations.  In  other  words,  they  constantly, 
through  various  combinations  of  guilds, 
unions  and  trade  organizations,  protect  j 
home  products  whenever  it  suits  their 
interests  to  do  so,  and  that  without  any 
relation  to  the  laws  of  sui^ply  and  de- 
mand, upon  which  the  whole  theory  of 
free  trade  is  based.  The  Ledgkr  has 
reiieatedly  shown  that  these  so-called 
natural  law.s  of  demand  and  supply  no 
longer  rule_supremp,  but  are  checked  and 
qualified  by  other  Intluenccs  of  modern  ori- 
gin that  are  quite  as  powerful.  Even  in  the 
heart  of  English  free  trade,  the  trades-  , 
unions,  and  employers’ unions,  and  combi- 
nation of  guilds,  contrive,  in  some  direc- 
tions, to  offset  and  hold  the  markets,  and  all 
through  the  economic  policy  of  England  is 
Interwoven  the  net-work  of  protection,  in 
spite  of  theories.  This  is  curiously  enough 
Khown  in  regard  to  the  two  staple  articles  of 
food.  Not  all  the  English  barriers  against  a 
free  food  supply  were  broken  down  when 
the  corn  laws  were  repealed,  but  combina- 
tions of  local  interests  can  still  block 
the  prices  from  falling,  even  if  desti- 
tution and  low  wages  among  the  people 
to  he  fed  on  the  one  hand,  and  an  abundant 
Bujiply  on  the  other,  ought  to  bring  in  force 
the  most  beneficent  operation  of  the  so-called 
natural  laws.  Such  perishable  articles  as 
beef  and  fish,  it  seems,  are  still  held  in  Eng- 
land out  of  the  reach  of  free  trade  considera- 
tions, the  one  locally,  the  other  as  an  im- 
port. Testimony  on  these  points  comes  from 
two  widely  removed  classes  of  witnesses. 
Borne  of  them  Americans  and  others  being 
Eritish  mercantile  men  and  newspaper  edi- 
tors; as,  for  example,  the  Newcastle  Daily 
Chronicle,  a north  of  England  journal.  The 
irregular,but  frequently  enormous,  fish  sup- 
ply of  England  is  virtually  controlled,  ac- 
cording to  an  English  statistician,  by  one 
Bociety,  which  purchases  along  the  coast 
the  greater  part  of  every  catch.  The  seaside 
prices  vary  from  one  farthing  to  three  half- 
I)ence  jier  pound,  but  the  distribution  is  so 
ai’ranged  that  the  ruling  prices  in  London 
and  the  townsare  kept  at  uniform  high  rates. 
Hixpence  a pound,  it  appears,  must  be  paid 
for  the  coarser  and  plentiful  kinds  of  fish, 
tliat  may  cost  but  a farthing  or  so  on  the 
co.'tst.  The  catch  is  calculated  by  telegrams 
from  tlu!  larger  dei)ots,  as  accurately  as  the 
necessary  ligurcs  to  complete  an  election  re- 
lurn  In  say  Luzerno  or  liouisiana— and 
wlia(ev«!r  over  amount  would  force  the 
market  <lown,  tloes  not  get  to  market.  It  is 
jiioro  prolltable  to  d(*s(roy  a part  of  tiie 
Block  on  hand  than  to  let  prices  fall,  hi  this 
control  o(  the  llsli  market,  so  that  th Is  food, 
even  when  alnindant.,  does  not  come  within 
the  reac-h  of  the  poon'st. 

So,  too,  I he  1 m noi  lal  ion  of  American  beef 


,1, 

carries  the  promise  of  an^indant  supply 
of  cheap  and  good  meat  to  England.  This, 

In  the  north  of  England  alone,  amounts  to 
a million  and  a half  of  pounds  annual  y. 
But  the  local  dealers  and  the  near  catUe 

trade  of  Ireland,  according  to  the  Neivcastle 
O/iromcZe,  are  growing  hostile  to  the  falling 
prices,  and  some  petty  acts  of  the  town 
council  are  related  to  show  the  spirit  of 
English  free  trade.  American  beef  con- 
tinues to  be  sold  as  the  “best  British,”  while 
combinations  of  associations  can  keep  up 
the  price  of  beef.  Of  course,  this  sort  of 
thing  cannot  last  long,  and  will  probably  be 
remedied  when  American  agencies  take  the 
matter  in  hand  and  sell  directly  to  the 
people.  But  it  serves  to  show,  even  without 
the  other  tendencies  in  England  towards 
protection  for  workshops  and  manufac- 
turing interests,  that  the  national  policy  of 
free  trade  since  1832  is  underpinned  by 
other  laws,  and  those  that  bear  the  hardest 
In  their  working  upon  the  already  limited 
food-producing  area  of  England. 

oi  .r  also,  that  the  only  and  ne- 

<ie§sai’y  remedy  for  the  present  condition  of 
things  is  “retaliation.”  The  Bradford 
Chronicle,  a joiiThttl  iri'flie  wmrkingnien’s  dis- 
trict, and  in  the  conservative  interest,  while 
rejecting  the  idea  of  ^absolute  “protection,” 
declares  that — ■ 

“America  is  certainly  acquiring  by  degrees  our 
‘commercial  primacy.’ and  if  we  continue  to  admit 
her  manufactured  goods  into  our  markets  without 
imposing  any  duty  on  them,  in  retaliation  for  the 
high  tariffs  she  charges  upon  the  products  of  Eug- 
land,  she  will  perhaps  be  able  to  wrest  from  us  those 
industries  which  have  added  to  the  wealth  and 
jrreatness  of  this  country.” 


It  is  scarcely  to  he  believed  that  the  Eng- 
lish legislature  will  do  anything  which  would 
tend,  even  in  the  remotest  degree,  to  in- 
crease the  cost  of  production  in  that  country, 
but  still  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Lord 
Beaconsheld,  and  the  majority  of  the  gentry 
around  him,  are  by  education  and  tradition, 
and  perhaps  by  conviction,  protectionists. 


SSfON 


OF  TllADE  I}f 


GLOOMY  PROSPECfS — BALANCE 

AGAINST  ENGLAND — DECREASE 


ENGLAND. 

OF  TRADE 
OF  EXPORTS 


TO  THE  UNITED  STATES — NEW  TAXATION. 

[by  cable  to  the  herald.] 

Tx>ndon,  Marcli  13,  1879. 

The  depressed  condition  of  trade  and  manufac- 
tures in  Englnnd  causes  anxiedy  in  commer- 
cial classes.  ]\lr.  David  JMcIvcr,  on(^  of  the  pi-opric- 
tors  of  the  Cunard  line  of  steamships,  and  mem- 
ber of  Parliament  for  liirkenlu'ad,  writes  to  the 
Times  declaring  unhesitatingly  tha.t  from  his  ])e.r- 
Bonol  experience  as  a carrier  he  does  not  know  of 
any  nation  wht)se  triule  i)rospect.s  at  iwosent  are 
Bo  gloomy  as  Great  Britain’s.  The  de])vession 
in  the  United  ^States  and  <d§ewhere  does  not  at 
all  approach  the  depression  licre.  The  Britisli 
exports  P)  the  United  States  are  coinparatividy 
nothing,  eitlier  as  n'gards  volume  or  value.  The 
British  food  importations  are  steadily  increasing, 
and  the  balance  of  trade  is  so  overwhelmingly 
against  Great  Britain  that  ho  sees  nothing  ex- 
cept ruin  in  j)rospect  for  home  • industries, 
whether  manufacturing  or  agricultrtral,  if  the 
present  state  ot  things  is  allowed  to  conlinue. 
The  export  trade  from  Liverpool  te  the  United 
States  is  so  small  that  whenever  the  restrictions 
on  the  importation  of  United  Stetes  cattle 
are  removed  gentlemen  Avho  are  prepared  to  put 
additional  steamers  into  the  trade  deliberately 
to  nijik©  the  outward  voyages  with  water  , 
ballast  only,  without  joining  in  the  scramble  for 
the  little  outward  treight,  which  other  owners-' 
ha  ve  bcien  recently  carr^diig  as  ballast  at  merely 
nominal  rates.” 


/2l 


. 

Ayfnerican  Tmclo  jind  Britisli  Ala^m. 

Ihe  motion  made  two  djiys  ago  ifl  the 
House  of  Lords  for  a compilation  of  the 
official  returns  of  British  trade  with  the 
United  States  is  a new  proof  of  the 
anxiety  which  pervades  the  public  mind 
of  England  respectihg  the  existing 
prostration  of  business.  There  is  a 
large  balance  of  American.^  trade  against 
England,  and  the  purpose  of  the  call 
for  statistics  was  to  lay  the  foundation 
for  negotfations  looking  to  a reciprocity 
treaty.  Great  Britain  has  lost  the  American 
market,  heretofore  the  best  and  most  valu- 
able of  all  her  markets.  We  doubt  whether 
any  attempt  to  recover  it  will  prove 
successful.  She  attributes  her  loss  of  the 
American  market  to  our  protective 
tariff  but  we  had  quite  as  high  a tariff 
when  her  trade  with  us  was  most  flourishing. 
The  loss  is,  in  fact,  due  to  the  great  prog- 
ress of  American  manufactures.  We  no 
longer  take  her  iron  and  her  textile  fabrics, 
because  we  have  acquired  the  ability 
to  make  better  and  cheaper  ' of  our 
own.  If  she  lays  a duty',  on  our 
cattle  and  our  breadstuff's  she  will 
merely  increase  the  cost  of  living  'to  her 
artisans  and  thereby  increase  the  expense 
of  production  and  give  us  further  advantages 
as  her  rivals  in  neutral  markets.  ' Her 
trade  suffers  from  a cause  which  a reci- 
procity treaty  coulti  not  remove.  The  letter 
of  Mr.  David  Mclvor,  M,  P.,  one  of  the  pro- 
prietors of  the  Cunard  line  of  steamers,  to  the 
London  Times  states,  important  facts  in  re- 
lation to  the  trade  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States.  The  export  trade 
from  Liverpool  has  dwindled  to  insignifi- 
cance, the  little  outward  freight  that  re- 
mains being  taken  as  ballast  atmerelv nom- 
inal rates, 


